Remember that AIDS campaign in the 80s....

tallaght01

.....you know the one with the freaky ads, where they showed loads of gravestones etc. I was only 7 or 8 years old and I still remember them!

It was apparently really successful.

I've just been thinking about why some public health campaigns are so successful, whereas others are dismal failures.

Those ads on TV where they show people getting mangled in car crashes don't seem to have been hugely successful, yet they're arguably as hard hitting as the AIDS ads.

Anyone got any thoughts on what makes a good public health campaign work? If we knew the answers, it would make advertising a lot more cost effective than it is now.

Susannahmia

tallaght01 wrote: »

.....you know the one with the freaky ads, where they showed loads of gravestones etc. I was only 7 or 8 years old and I still remember them!

It was apparently really successful.

I've just been thinking about why some public health campaigns are so successful, whereas others are dismal failures.

Those ads on TV where they show people getting mangled in car crashes don't seem to have been hugely successful, yet they're arguably as hard hitting as the AIDS ads.

Anyone got any thoughts on what makes a good public health campaign work? If we knew the answers, it would make advertising a lot more cost effective than it is now.

One explanation for that could be that we are a lot more desentisized these days.

GuanYin

The Skin Cancer awareness ones are a bust. The only 100% avoidable cancer and it's got such a high incidence in Ireland

eth0_

I was too young to understand what that ad was about but it scared the hell out of me and I remembered the word 'AIDS' from it.

I have to say, when drink driving ads come on, I instantly turn over. They are too graphic and they don't work. I think drink driving is a lot related to selfishness. If you are a selfish person who only thinks of number one then you are more likely to drink and drive because you're not thinking or caring about the consequences it might have for OTHER people. Whereas AIDS awareness ads are showing you what could happen to you personally.

If that makes any sense..

tallaght01

I agree with pretty much everything above.

BUt if we live in a selfish, desensitised world, what strategies can we use to get public health messages across to the public?

Boggles

You could start with proper Sex ed in schools, I learned about the "Birds and the Bees" from a 60 year old Nun in primary school when I was 12.

Learning about something from someone who has never experienced it, only in Ireland!!!

tallaght01

hahaha, it's true.

I learned about it in an all boys school by watching a video of nuns teaching sex ed to girls!!!!!!!

Boggles

As Ali G Said - "Sex Education should be thought by Porn Stars"

Spyral

You could start with proper Sex ed in schools, I learned about the "Birds and the Bees" from a 60 year old Nun in primary school when I was 12.

Learning about something from someone who has never experienced it, only in Ireland!!!

she the gaw-bean that was on about the 2 drops of water rubbish ?

ok sperm and egg euphamism.

we were 15 when we got that one !! AAARGH!

THANK **** I STUDIED BIOLOGY AND WASNT AFRAID TO ASK MUM WHAT IS A VAGINA ON A WOMAN FOR ?

littlebug

It's believed now that while those hard hitting fear appeals alone may make an initial impact and increase awareness they have little impact in terms of long term behaviour change. Used in conjunction with more interactive methods e.g within schools, community etc they have a better chance of working. I'm talking in general here, not necessarily sexual health. The biggest impact the hard hitting glossy ads make is to make the general public think that the government is actually putting money into the issue.

cynical me? Nah....;)

Boggles

Spyral wrote: »

she the gaw-bean that was on about the 2 drops of water rubbish ?

ok sperm and egg euphamism.

we were 15 when we got that one !! AAARGH!

THANK **** I STUDIED BIOLOGY AND WASNT AFRAID TO ASK MUM WHAT IS A VAGINA ON A WOMAN FOR ?

Thats the one. She didn't wear her uniform thou, so I suppose that was something.

45 minutes from a Nun when I was 12 was it, nothing else.

Shocking people, with commercials for Aids or young people flying out through the windscreen of a car simply don't work.

I had to endure a Nun talking about sex, doesn't get more shocking than that. As for car crashes, I can watch far 'better' on my 42 inch flat screen with 5.1.

Instead of the National Road Safety Association or whatever it is, spending millions on mini John Woe Films, why not pick a couple of schools and introduce safe driving programs. I might be doing them wrong, are there programs like these?

hunnymonster

I was also taught by nuns and quite apart from the anatomical inaccuracies of what we were told, the psychological stuff was scary. For example, we were told it was wrong to kiss a boy because that would get him excited and he would not be able to control himself and therefore we would only have ourselves to blame if we ended up pregnant!

Not to claim the clery were all bad. My brother was taught by priests, he got the correct biological information, they were given bananas and condoms to "practice" with and a local GP came in to talk to them. He has always maintained she was the best sex educator ever. Apparently she showed them quite graphic pictures of the results of some STD's and it made them acutely aware of their responsibility to be mature about these things.

Tallaght01, I really don't know how we go about public health awareness in the naughties. As other have said we are surrounded by very graphic imagery of all sorts these days and it is hard to get an impact.

panda100

A good topic to bring up.

A huge problem launching widespread effective camapigns in Ireland is a compete lack of intrest by the goverment in preventative medicine.
Ad campigns in the Uk work because they have the infrastructure to back them up. From cervical to prostate screening everything is free,unlike Ireland, where we just get glossy camapigns to tell us to see a doctor but then have to pay 60 euro to be screened. (except breast cancer screening which has been one of Irelands few succesful campiagns of late)

I think at the moment far too much emphasis is placed on superfical advertising and not on real,actual preventitive measures to the problems we face.This can be seen quite clearly from the lack of success the drink driving camapigns have had. *
If there was proper transportation for people in rural areas then incidences of drink driving would decrease dramatically. In my home village back in Limerick it is many of the older people only social outlet to have a drink in the pub every Friday night and they shouldnt be denied that. Yet we have one bus service that goes through the village every Friday morning at 10.00 am,thats all. There should be transport available to people in these small villages at closing time.That would be a lot more effective then the couple of millions spent annually on tv adverts which obviously have no effect.

Finance plays a major role in the success of not just a glossy ad campaign but the whole prevention camapign surrounding it. In general the majority of public health camapign are completly underfunded.
A good example is looking at the numerous mental health camapigns which are unsuccesfully inflicted on us every few years. There is no point having a camapign If the recources for suicdal people or treating depression are dire and non existent. Most mass public health camapigns that are started are started with with a completle lack of funding and hence doomed to failure.
For example In 2006 the 'vision for change' document incorporating the 'Reach Out' strategy was launched on how to tackle Ireland growing youth suicide epidemic. The health professionals who compiled the document estimated at least 3.8 million euro was needed to implement it. Only 1.8 million euro was provided. Therefore,all we see is a glossy ad camapign and no actual REAL support for suicidal teens. All the youth suicde support networks such as teenline and spunout are without funding. So we have a campaign telling us to reach out for help but there is noone there to help us?!





*Oh yes and we also have a tv presenter as the chairman of the road saftey authority. How the hell is he going to know how to implement an affective camapign?What next Joe Duffy as minister of health (somthing which I think could actually happen :eek: )

Boggles

panda100 wrote: »

A good topic to bring up.

A huge problem launching widespread effective camapigns in Ireland is a compete lack of intrest by the goverment in preventative medicine.
Ad campigns in the Uk work because they have the infrastructure to back them up. From cervical to prostate screening everything is free,unlike Ireland, where we just get glossy camapigns to tell us to see a doctor but then have to pay 60 euro to be screened. (except breast cancer screening which has been one of Irelands few succesful campiagns of late)

I think at the moment far too much emphasis is placed on superfical advertising and not on real,actual preventitive measures to the problems we face.This can be seen quite clearly from the lack of success the drink driving camapigns have had. *
If there was proper transportation for people in rural areas then incidences of drink driving would decrease dramatically. In my home village back in Limerick it is many of the older people only social outlet to have a drink in the pub every Friday night and they shouldnt be denied that. Yet we have one bus service that goes through the village every Friday morning at 10.000,thats all. There should be transport available to people in these small villages at closing time.That would be a lot more effective then the couple of millions spent annually on tv adverts which obviously have no effect.

Finance plays a major role in the success of not just a glossy ad campaign but the whole prevention camapign surrounding it. In general the majority of public health camapign are completly underfunded.
A good example is looking at the numerous mental health camapigns which are unsuccesfully inflicted on us every few years. There is no point having a camapign If the recources for suicdal people or treating depression are dire and non existent. Most mass public health camapigns that are started are started with with a completle lack of funding and hence doomed to failure.
For example In 2006 the 'vision for change' document incorporating the 'Reach Out' strategy was launched on how to tackle Ireland growing youth suicide epidemic. The health professionals who compiled the document estimated at least 3.8 million euro was needed to implement it. Only 1.8 million euro was provided. Therefore,all we see is a glossy ad camapign and no actual REAL support for suicidal teens. All the youth suicde support networks such as teenline and spunout are without funding. So we have a campaign telling us to reach out for help but there is noone there to help us?!





*Oh yes and we also have a tv presenter as the chairman of the road saftey authority. How the hell is he going to know how to implement an affective camapign?What next Joe Duffy as minister of health (somthing which I think could actually happen :eek: )

Good Post.

Yeah all the 17 and 18 year olds I know can really relate to Gay Burne.

Chunky Monkey

There's that recent ad for some disease over 55 year olds are at risk of, forget the name. When I saw it at first I thought it might be for an Irish version of Brainiac or something, that's what attracted my attention. But I'm not over 55. Why did they think that this style would attract that age group. To be honest I don't think it would, the colours/image scheme seemed too childish if that makes sense. As far as can remember it also seemed too technical, mentioning a condition I've never heard of before.

My dad said at school his teacher slapped a pair of black sheeps lungs on the table in front of the class. The next day they were all on the chewing gum.

It needs to be real, not over the top. I think those drink driving ads should perhaps be silent without the sad music (or include the cash noises and crying only). Could make it feel less like a movie and more real. Course they could also do with getting rid of car parks outside pubs and increasing garda presence. Those breathalysers, I heard there's a way of getting past them if you chew some sort of tablet with charcoal in it. Dunno if that's actually true or not.

With regards the mental health campaigns, WTF? What are they actually trying to convey? The mental health services do seem pretty shabby here alright.

That's just my two pence. Feel free to regard/comment on it as being utter BS

tallaght01

Some interesting ideas above.

I love chunky monkey's illustration of how unsuccessful the ad campaign was...so much so that he couldn't remember the name of the disease lol

Panda, mental illness is always underfunded, and so is public health. When you combine the 2, it's a recipe for disaster.

Mental illness doesn't have such easily measurable outcomes. Therefore, politically, it's of less benefit to fund it. Same with public health to an extent, where most of the measurable outcomes can't be seen in the lifetime in the govt that we're asking to fund it.

Governments love talking about hip replacements and cataracts etc, procedures with measurable outcomes.

A lot of my favourite reading has been about the link between economic inequality and overall health of a population. Anyone who's interested, should look at the link between a country's health and their gini co-efficiant (google it, or it's on wikipedia).

I've mentioned it before, but this thread might be an interesting place to look for opinons. I do neonatal medicine. This involves premature babies, or otherwise sick babies. Now, it costs several thousands of euros per day to keep a sick preterm baby alive. We always get the money every year. We have less stafing etc than we would like, but it's rare that we have to cut back services becuase of finances. Governments are terrified of a sick baby being denied treatment because of financial restraints getting into the news.

But would people think that neonatal intensive care is a good use of our resources? I'm not seriously suggesting getting rid of NICU. I'd be out of a job. But I'm just curious about what others think of pouring so much money into saving one individual. Would the greater good be best served by diverting that money into helping a greater number of people? Or does the fact that a baby is tiny and helpless put an extra onus upon us to go that extra mile for them? As a potential public health doc, but also a neonatal reg who loves the specialty I struggle to reconcile the concept of "The greatest good for the greatest number of people" with such a finincially intensive specialty.

For the record, my opinion is that the most vulnerable members of society (children, the elderly, the mentally ill, the homeless etc) should get a bigger slice of the pie.

Chunky Monkey

I love chunky monkey's illustration of how unsuccessful the ad campaign was...so much so that he couldn't remember the name of the disease lol

Correction, she

Mental illness doesn't have such easily measurable outcomes. Therefore, politically, it's of less benefit to fund it. Same with public health to an extent, where most of the measurable outcomes can't be seen in the lifetime in the govt that we're asking to fund it.

This is probably a fairly naive view but (using depression as an example) if people are happier, they're more productive in their jobs. If people are more productive, more money tends to be made. If more money is made, the economy would probably improve. Or is that too far fetched?

For the record, my opinion is that the most vulnerable members of society (children, the elderly, the mentally ill, the homeless etc) should get a bigger slice of the pie.

Agreed.

tallaght01

Chunky Monkey wrote: »

Correction, she



This is probably a fairly naive view but (using depression as an example) if people are happier, they're more productive in their jobs. If people are more productive, more money tends to be made. If more money is made, the economy would probably improve. Or is that too far fetched?



Agreed.

My apolgies, young miss

I've become so cynical about healthcare over the years. I firmly believe politics has become the art of keeping power. If we genuinely had a lot of politicians who cared primarily about the health of the population in the long term, regardless of it's effects on their chances of re-election, I don't think public health would be so underfunded, and the obsession with waiting lists would be less.

eth0_

Chunky Monkey wrote: »

With regards the mental health campaigns, WTF? What are they actually trying to convey? The mental health services do seem pretty shabby here alright.

They're really just trying to get the point across that mental illness is very common in Irish society, that chances are at least one of your friends has had/is suffering from mental illness.

Problem is, I don't think there is the massive stigma associated with mental illness in this country anymore because unfortunately it is pretty rife here (and gets f*ck all funding).

I think tallaght01 raises an interesting point regards preferential funding of certain services, e.g. NICU's. I didn't realise it can cost thousands per day to keep a premature baby alive. At what point are we going to say no? There are people with life threatening illnesses who are refused treatment, yet babies that are unlikely to survive have seemingly unlimited funding.

Babies, the mentally ill and the elderly are the most vulnerable members of our society, yet the mentally ill and elderly get the raw deal with squalid hospitals (like the central mental hospital) and nursing homes run by people who don't give a crap whether their patients live or die (Lea's cross). It's very f*cked up.

Spyral

well I woudl argue that if bertie can get a pay increase and increase pensions then there is money somewhere.

John

Spyral wrote: »

well I woudl argue that if bertie can get a pay increase and increase pensions then there is money somewhere.

Precisely. The government can waste millions on projects that don't come to fruition (Bertie Bowl) or on building up the infrastructure in an unrealistic way that results in more money being poured in to fix the problems (the advisers brought in for the M50 told the government that it should be at least four lanes on each side as it wouldn't cope with the traffic otherwise so the government built it against this advice and now is widening the road). If every department used its resources effectively and properly then there shouldn't be a funding issue for any aspect of public services.

Chunky Monkey

I've never worked in a NICU so I'm basing this entirely on watching ER but babies can little fighters can't they? Plus perhaps the thinking behind it is that they're potential benefits for the economy whereas the mentally ill and the elderly aren't. Can you imagine people thinking like this

Chunky Monkey

Heh apparently they started the M50 at either end and it didn't meet up in the middle.