Researchers recently published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine confirming that colonoscopy saves lives. A quick summary of results could be found here. According to the New York Times, the longitudinal study found that the death rate was cut by 53% in those people who underwent colonoscopy and who had polyps removed.
For my health communication students, why makes this story newsworthy?
Currently 90,000 people in America are waiting for a kidney. It is estimated 4,500 of those waiting will die this year. Without family or friends to donate, patients have to rely on kidney transplant chains.
This is why it is so exciting that, as discussed in class yesterday, a kidney transplant chain recently set a record for the world’s largest kidney transplant chain, involving 30 donors and 30 recipients from across the US. The donors and the people they helped didn’t know each other and were brought together by a computer match program developed by the National Kidney Registry.
The chain has received media attention from across the country. Kidney transplant chains have been done before, but the media was able to use a fresh angle with this story, by referring to it as “record-breaking.” The story is also media-friendly because altruistic actions such as giving a kidney to a stranger for nothing in return is not common and, therefore, intriguing to audiences.
The National Kidney Registry has coordinated 77 transplant chains that have provided kidneys to 393 patients. The creator of the registry said kidney chains have the potential to provide kidneys to as many as 20,000 patients immediately, and 3,000 patients per year thereafter, which is interesting because, while the 30 patient chain is being celebrated, it is no where near its potential. The National Kidney Registry website allows anyone to enter themselves in the registry to wait for a match or donate a kidney. Do you think the recent media coverage will encourage others to enter themselves into the registry? Will more strangers be motivated to start a chain? How can kidney chains reach their potential?
This topic relates to other health topics discussed in class because one of the leading causes of kidney failure is diabetes. Unfortunately, until trends in obesity turn around, cases of diabetes are likely going to continue to rise, along with an increase patients waiting for a kidney. How can more people be notified of the increasing need for donors? What sort of campaign could the government initiate to create this kind of altruistic motivation?
In addition, I noticed that while several individuals waiting for a kidney have tried to set up Facebook pages to encourage donors, the National Kidney Registry does not have a presence on Facebook or Twitter. Do you think utilizing these websites would engage more of the public? Is social media an appropriate medium to spread awareness of the need for kidney donors?
To read more about the record-breaking kidney chain and the necessity of these chains, check out these articles:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/kidney-transplant-chain-sets-record/story?id=15752299#.T0VRDk-K23U
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120220102128.htm
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/10752173-418/chain-reaction.html
-MC
Brain scans can detect signs of autism as early as a year before most diagnoses
New research shows that brain scans can detect signs of autism as early as six months of age. A study published last week in the American Journal of Psychiatry and funded by advocacy group Autism Speaks indicates that the wiring in the brains of children with autism spectrum disorders is noticeably different from normally developing children, and that these brain network differences can be seen using neuro-imaging as early as half a year of age. 
Autism can only be diagnosed based on behaviors, which is why it’s generally not diagnosed before 18 months — at the earliest. This new information means that brain connectivity plays a role in autism, a disorder whose cause is unknown. While brain scans can’t diagnose autism, they can suggest a future diagnosis and early diagnosis means earlier intervention.
The study looked at the 6, 12 and 24-month MRIs of 92 infants who had an older sibling with autism (the disorder is thought to have genetic roots). The 6-month brain scans of children who were later diagnosed with autism — at 24 months, based on behavioral criteria — had differences in the development of white matter fiber tract in 12 of 15 major brain connections. These white matter pathways were denser than in infants who didn’t develop autism. If parts of the brain aren’t properly connected, it could indicate why children with autism have social and communicative problems.
Researchers are optimistic about the discovery, but say that further research needs to include children other than those at high risk for autism.
“It’s a preliminary albeit great first step towards thinking about developing a biomarker for risk in advance of our current ability to diagnose autism,” said Jason Wolff, lead study author.
Read the full article here: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/17/brain-scans-in-infants-shed-light-on-autism-onset/
The Cigar Trap
The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has come out with a campaign called The Cigar Trap. This campaign aims to prevent and raise awareness among the youth of Maryland from smoking flavored cigars. Research indicates that Maryland’s youth are switching from smoking cigarettes to cigars because cigars now come in different flavors such as strawberry, watermelon, apple, peach, etc. Not only are these flavors appealing to the youth, but these cigars are also cheaper to purchase than cigarettes, another appealing factor. Research further shows that the youth who purchase these cigars believe that they are healthier for them compared to cigarettes when in fact, these cigarillos are just as harmful.
Because of this new trend in youth, the state of Maryland has decided to raise awareness and provide knowledge to this younger generation of the misleading information that cigar companies are putting out there.
Their campaign so far consists of marketing advertisements that read “Warning: Cigars are sold in the same flavors & price as ice cream. No matter how they sugarcoat it, cigars kill.” The Department of Health issued this advertisement in Fall 2011. They pretested the campaign among health advocates whom advocates support the advertisement but believe that more can be done. Here is the link to a picture of the advertisement:
http://dhmh.maryland.gov/thecigartrap/new/PrintAd_1.pdf
Take a look at the advertisement and think about the message it conveys, but also think about its intended audience. Does the format seem relevant to the audience? One of the readings this week from the Pink Book states that different appeals apply to different audiences and situations. I think it’s necessary to say that the advertisement is appropriate for the intended audience. The nature of the message isn’t too complex, it’s easy to understand, and it gets the message across. But what more do you think could be done in order for this campaign to help actually change health behaviors? Should this advertisement be clearer with its message? Is it misleading in any way?
Georgia’s Obesity Ads.
Yesterday cnn.com posted an interesting article about Georgia’s new childhood obesity ad campaign, which highly correlates with our recent class discussions, readings and the previous two blog entries about children’s health and obesity. The article discussed the somewhat controversial campaign and its supposed positive influences on the community as a whole.
As was briefly mentioned in class, the state of Georgia has recently developed a movement to prevent and reduce childhood obesity. The primary target audience of these ads seem to not be overweight children, but the community of Georgia as a whole (including family members, caretakers and friends).
The CNN article entitled Georgia’s Child Obesity Ads Aim to Create Movement Out of Controversy centers around the new statewide Strong4Life campaign. The campaign ads feature sayings like,”Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid,” and “It’s hard to be a little girl when you’re not.”
Despite its controversy, Strong4Life supporters believe that their efforts have already been successful. They say that the main goal of the movement was to get people talking and bring attention to the ‘obesity epidemic,’ which they argue could only be done by creating startling ads. It’s true that these ads do attract attention, which is important when delivering a message to an intended public. However, there seems to be a fine line between ‘attention grabbing’ and ‘offensive.’
Opponents of the campaign argue that Strong4Life ads are not only offensive and in poor taste, but they don’t offer any solution to the obesity problem. In fact, many argue that children seeing these posters or billboards with these ads become more discouraged and more likely to continue their unhealthy habits. As we read in The Effectiveness of Media Use in Health Education: Evaluation of an HIV/AIDS Radio Campaign in Ethiopia, the audience is much more likely to listen to a program or hear the intended message from a campaign if the media is entertaining. Are the Strong4Life ads entertaining or just something upset people are likely to block out of their minds?
Some of these ads could potentially be deeply painful for both children who are struggling with their weight and their families. The question is, do these ads offend you? Or can you sympathize with what the Strong4Life campaign is trying to do? Is there a better way to approach this issue that centers on compassion and doesn’t involve the f-word (fat)?
Cambridge Behavioral Studies.
On their website for behavioral studies, the Cambridge Center has a very interesting article pertaining to behavior in schools. This article, although relating to more to school motivation, can also serve to show how self-motivation is a good tool for behavioral change.
During the past week, we have been talking about how everything relates back to behavior change. The post from group one reflects the ideas of school nutrition as a major health issue. Continuing on that theme, this article offers suggestions to help children change their behavior in school by changing the way that they are taught to be self-sufficient and self-motivating. These suggestions could easy convert to changing children’s behaviors towards health and being health conscious.
The article, entitled Pervasive Negative Effects of Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation: The Myth Continues, talks about how a major concern in behavior in terms of psychological ideas towards education is that giving rewards to children decrease their intrinsic motivation to perform activities. Jumping ahead, the outcomes of the article and research it contains was that the results suggested rewards are not harmful to motivation to perform a task, especially rewards given for low-interest tasks. For high-interest tasks, the article finds that verbal rewards in this case would produce a more positive effect on free-choice motivation.
Now, how does this relate to Health Communication and the issue of changing children’s behaviors towards health? Well, if small rewards are granted to doing low-interest tasks, then wouldn’t it be helpful to reward children who choose the healthy options at their school cafeterias, for example with one serving of chocolate as a reward? This reward might help the children become more interested in their own health and concerned with what is being served to them for lunch. As the interest in health grows to become a more high-interest task, then only a verbal reward would be necessary. So instead of chocolate, a teacher could commend a student for eating a salad for lunch by simply saying, “That is a very good choice, I hope others follow your example.”
Do you think that the sort of behavioral change discussed in the article can be applied to health? If you were a school child eating at a cafeteria where you had to make the choice between pizza and a salad, would the reward of chocolate be able to tempt you into good health choices and ultimately change your behavior towards health?
If you would like to read the complete article, you may find it here: http://www.behavior.org/resource.php?id=331
vthealthcomm 