Director's Blog
Health Marketing Musings
from Jay M. Bernhardt, PhD, MPH
I've asked Melinda Frost, former lead for NCHM's Global Communication and Marketing team, to write a guest blog for this month's edition of Health Marketing Musings. Since early November, Melinda has served in a unique capacity for our Center. She works under the US Embassy in Beijing, China as the first US CDC health communications officer placed overseas. One of her roles is to determine how US CDC can best partner with China's Ministry of Health to increase their ability to deliver tailored, culturally appropriate health information to affected populations at national and sub-national levels. – Jay Bernhardt
Thank you Jay, for welcoming me as a guest blogger to Health Marketing Musings.
Happy Chinese New Year (guò nián hao)! As I'm writing this, the New Year's festivities in Beijing are coming to a close. People are lowering their red lanterns and sweeping firecracker wrappers and residue from the streets. The celebration began on February 6 and continued 24 hours a day for two weeks with fireworks booming and crackling outside of our Beijing home. Every neighborhood tried to outdo the others with festive fireworks shows. It's an amazing experience to see spontaneous celebrations around every corner of this city!
One of your first questions might be, "Why pilot health marketing programs in China?" I want to explain why China serves as a perfect partner in CDC's global health marketing program, and give you information on our projects.
More than any other nation in our time, China has experienced rapid and complex economic and societal changes over the last 30 years. These unprecedented changes have contributed to shifting public health priorities. Some of these shifts can be compared to those in the US and European nations, while others present learning opportunities for less developed nations. In either case, there is much to be learned by applying health marketing programs here.
Consider these statistics: China's population is currently more than 1.3 billion people. That's 23% of the world's population. Since 2002, China's economy has doubled in size and will continue to rise in the foreseeable future, creating a larger middle and upper-middle class that will live predominately in China's cities.
China is also a world leader in the use of new media. Netpop, an Internet research firm, states that the "Chinese have the potential to shape Web commerce and culture far beyond their own country." (Liu & Zoninsein, 2007). Here are some examples of their technological savvy:
- In July 2007, there were 162 million Internet users in China.
- The Chinese own 540 million mobile handsets – an increase of 7 million mobile phone handsets owned per month through July 2007.
- 47 million Chinese people blog, with almost 29 million active blog sites – and the numbers are growing.
- In 2007, the Chinese sent out 535 billion Short Message Service (SMS) messages in just 11 months - a 37% increase from 2006.
China's sheer population size, its meteoric rise to a first-world economy, explosive use of technology, and evolving public health priorities all show that China's needs for health information will change, and that science-based and innovative approaches to delivering health messages must be developed.
There are global issues to consider too. China's 1.3 billion health information consumers represent a formidable slice of the global community. If 23% of the world's people are not appropriately informed or advised during a health emergency – such as pandemic influenza or SARS – the health of other nations in the world, including the US, will certainly be affected. China's Ministry of Health (MoH) and its technical arm, China's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C-CDC), recognize the critical need to effectively communicate with their people. They are looking to the US CDC and our collaborative project base to help address this need.
China's CDC and the US CDC have a long and trusting relationship. In fact, C-CDC renamed their agency in 2002 to reflect a similar mission in disease control and prevention. Prior to 2006 and before I came to Beijing, US CDC was offering health communication technical assistance to China and other nations primarily through its exemplary tool - CDCynergy. CDCynergy is a robust template with a myriad of examples for programs to develop communication campaigns on a variety of public health topics.
Today, US CDC has expanded upon this platform, reflecting the wide range of NCHM's competencies including eHealth, emergency communication, and marketing research. We are working side-by-side with MoH staff to provide direct assistance globally by developing programs with novel health marketing approaches, capacity development, and using new media strategies. Success depends on our being equal partners with our host nation's MoH, creating distinctive plans tailored to the nation's needs, audiences, resources, and infrastructure. The projects we conduct here can and should be replicated by other nations, but the principles, products, and enhanced capacity will be uniquely China's.
To learn more about specific initiatives, please see our web pages on the Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Disease Program and the Emergency and Risk Communications Project.
Applying effective health marketing strategies in China's dynamic environment provides a unique opportunity for China to creatively address its changing public health priorities while serving as a key contributor to global health marketing's research base. As an example, our collaboration in adapting western-based emergency risk communication principles will prove invaluable for crafting future global public health preparedness measures, both in methods and results.
Given its size, economic growth, and technological capacity, China is an ideal nation at an ideal time to both benefit from NCHM's proven competencies, while providing the global public health community with tangible health marketing strategies that other countries can use in the future.
Thanks to the CIA World Factbook: China, 2008; China's Ministry of Information Industry, 2007; and the American Embassy Beijing, US Commercial Service, 2008; for statistical information included in this blog.
Posted by Melinda Frost, MA, MPH on Thursday, March 6, 2008 at 12:00pm ET
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Jay,
Does China have any strategies with the CDC for their water pollution problems? It would seem that addressing those problems could be preventative of other illnesses now and in the future.
Since China is changing and growing and also has such a large population, maybe they could begin development with the CDC on water sanitization technology. New forms of electrolysis to separate salts from ocean waters while pumping them back through underground in soil accessible designs. Creating lake areas which then increase the ground saturation levels and are routed into the Yellow River and others to merge the changes into a natural former existing water system.
That would be one area, the other would be more modernized sanitation. Since today the standards on sanitation of water coming into sanitation plants are said to be less than 40% clean. Waters that come into sanitation plants from the cities are given chlorine treatments, but at regulated levels, otherwise it removes the oxygen in the water and destroys fish and plant life when it makes its way back into the river systems.
So by knowing that the increasing populations will contribute to sanitation problems in areas of already polluted waters, and knowing that there is a level of chemical treatment that can't be increased in treatment application, perhaps there is a another area in which the CDC can work with China?
What are China's plans or strategies for the future of sanitation and water?
Frank
http://www.ezprintsolutions.com
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