Responding Rapidly to Public Health Emergencies Using New Media: Swine Flu

By Jennie Anderson

As many of you know, this week, HHS declared swine flu to be a national public health emergency. At AIDS.gov we're particularly concerned about this issue because people with compromised immune systems, including those living with HIV/AIDS, are more likely to become ill from diseases like the flu.

New media tools can help support our efforts to deliver public health messages quickly and broadly. We are using those tools to spread the word about the swine flu outbreak and to support the public health community's response to it. We ask you to join us in this important mission.

Putting the Simple in Real Simple Syndication (RSS Feeds)

How can you keep up with the never-ending parade of news on HIV/AIDS prevention, testing, treatment, and research?

Many of our AIDS.gov colleagues use a great tool--RSS feeds--to help visitors to their websites meet the challenge of keeping current. But many others haven‘t adopted this new media tool yet--possibly because they are not familiar with the tool, or they are intimidated by the technology.

We'd like to change that! Today we'll talk about RSS feeds in simple terms and encourage you to give them a try.