Director's Blog
Health Marketing Musings
from Jay M. Bernhardt, PhD, MPH
This is an exciting time to be working in health communication, marketing, and media. While each of these areas has roots in distinct disciplines, what brings us together is our shared belief that customers (however defined) matter most, information is powerful, and protecting and promoting people's health is a noble cause worth fighting for.
For the past two days, I attended the first ever National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media, which was co-sponsored by CDC's National Center for Health Marketing and Office for Enterprise Communication, along with the National Public Health Information Coalition. This inaugural event brought together more than 400 scientists, professionals, practitioners, and students from all over the US and several other countries to provide a scientific and professional forum to share insights, research findings, and best practices to advance our multi-disciplinary work. The conference was strategically divided into five tracks designed to facilitate discussion around the following topic areas: reaching vulnerable populations and reducing health disparities; promoting behavior change; disseminating public health programs; strengthening evaluation and measurement; and exploring new frontiers in the areas of health communication, marketing, and media.
The theme for the conference was "Expanding Networks, Increasing Knowledge, and Advancing Public Health" and I hope that all the conference attendees were able to accomplish all three of these goals. We also convened a group of interested professionals over breakfast today to explore strategies for expanding and strengthening our professional networks beyond this conference by increasing our scientific exchange, developing new electronic engagement tools, and exploring the creation of a new professional association related to health communication, marketing, and media. Another area of focus for us is the development of graduate-level training competencies. Please contact me at nchminfo@cdc.gov if you are interested in supporting these professional networking activities.
It is my hope that the ideas and enthusiasm generated at this conference will create momentum that can move us all forward. The interdisciplinary collaboration modeled through conversations and scientific sessions leads me to believe that the shared future of our work is very bright. I had the opportunity to interact with distinguished colleagues who have been instrumental in the development of these fields and I believe we all felt the camaraderie and energy that was created by bringing us all together.
While respecting our discipline-specific histories and traditions, the future of our multi-disciplinary work requires that we all do our best to move beyond our borders and remain focused on our shared beliefs and vision. We should all consider the wisdom described in the old African Proverb, "If you want to go fast, go alone; If you want to go far, go together."
Let's all go forward together, expand our networks, increase our knowledge, and together, advance public health, in the US and around the world.
Posted by Jay on Thursday, August 30, 2007 at 2:00pm ET
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Jay,
Congratulations on a huge success! This is the beginning of a new era in Health Communications, Marketing and Media. Health Marketing aligns disciplines and strategies to eliminate health disparities at all levels of the socio-ecologic model — "from Discovery to Delivery". Great job!
Received from Maria Norena on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 at 12:47pm ETComment