Director's Blog
Health Marketing Musings
from Jay M. Bernhardt, PhD, MPH
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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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The most important platform in the world for collecting and delivering targeted and tailored health information during the first half of the 21st Century will be mobile phones. Mobile phones and integrated wireless devices will revolutionize the practice of public health and touch billions of lives around the world.
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Posted by Jay on Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 12:00pm ETSubmit a comment
Health Literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions, as defined by the National Library of Medicine and as used in Healthy People 2010. According to the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), more than 77 million adults in the US demonstrate basic or below basic health literacy skills.
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Posted by Jay on Monday, December 17, 2007 at 11:00am ETSubmit a comment
On December 1, 2007, the world will collectively observe World AIDS Day. Since 1988, World AIDS Day has provided an important opportunity for governments, organizations, communities, and individuals to generate greater public awareness of the devastating impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and to re-energize those fighting against it. Worldwide, HIV prevalence—the percentage of people living with HIV—has leveled off and the number of new infections dropped in 2007. However, AIDS remains among the leading causes of death around the world and continues to be the primary cause of death in Africa. In 2007, an estimated 2.1 million died of AIDS.
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Posted by Jay on Friday, November 30, 2007 at 3:00pm ETSubmit a comment
On Saturday October 19, I attended part of the first CONNECT. Public Relations & Social Media Conference hosted by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. The agenda included renowned PR professionals (or "Rock Stars" as accurately described by Dr. Kaye Sweetser) who discussed cutting-edge social media techniques and how they can be used in PR and marketing. Many thanks to UGA for organizing and including me in this event. I invite you to browse the CONNECT blog, where you can find audio, blogs, links, twitter content, podcasts, photos and more from the conference.
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Posted by Jay on Monday, October 29, 2007 at 12:00pm ETSubmit a comment
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.
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Posted by Jay on Thursday, August 30, 2007 at 2:00pm ETSubmit a comment
One of the mainstays of health marketing is to designate a day (or week or month) to a public health issue and use that day and the time leading up to it to raise awareness and promote health messages. Unfortunately, this strategy has become so commonplace that nearly every week has one, if not several, worthwhile observances associated with it, thereby reducing the likelihood of getting attention among the many competing stories appearing in the media. Nonetheless, some "days" are particularly important and well worth our attention and efforts.
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Posted by Jay on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 at 11:00am ETSubmit a comment
Last week I attended a morning panel presentation at Emory University's Goizueta Business School featuring Richard Edelman, Chairman and CEO of Edelman. Richard discussed the 2007 Edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual survey of influentials from 18 countries and their perceptions of trust and credibility in different organizational sectors and information sources.
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Posted by Jay on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 5:00pm ETSubmit a comment
When I came to CDC in August 2005, I brought with me one major goal: to improve the CDC website. I am proud to say that as of April 19, 2007, we have accomplished this goal with the launch of the new CDC.gov homepage and top-level navigation pages. Not that the old site was that bad compared to some others (who will remain nameless), but it certainly wasn't nearly as good as it could be. The design of the new site is based on science, best practices, and evidence-based research, like everything else we do at the CDC and the National Center for Health Marketing.
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Posted by: Jay on Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 9:00am ETSubmit a comment
Before I share my topic for this blog, I have an admission to make. I am a lousy blogger. This blog entry is long overdue. I deeply believe in blogging and the incredible power of personal narrative, but am having a hard time keeping it fresh. I invite suggestions from veteran bloggers to let me know how they manage to do their day jobs and still keep their blog novel.
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Posted by: Jay at 5:00 PM on Monday, March 5, 2007Submit a comment
Congratulations and thanks are due to Dimitry Kruglyak from the Medical Blog Network (http://www.healthvoices.com/), who organized and recently hosted the first Healthcare Blogging Summit in Washington, DC as part of Consumer Health World. I was honored to speak at the Summit and share the dais with many accomplished innovators and leaders in the world of health-related blogging. A number of participants and attendees have written about the Summit and you can find their feedback here: http://www.technorati.com/search/healthcare+blogging+summit
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Posted by: Jay at 12:00 PM on Thursday, December 28, 2006Submit a comment
It was great seeing old colleagues and meeting new innovators in Toronto recently at the 11th World Congress on Internet in Medicine (MedNet) (http://www.mednetcongress.org/). I had the honor of delivering the keynote address at the conference (
12 pages/1.72 MB) and today's blog will offer a brief synopsis of my remarks.
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Posted by: Jay at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, November 14, 2006Submit a comment
For the last several weeks, CDC has been actively engaged leading the public health response to the E. coli outbreak associated with fresh spinach that has sickened more than 150 people and may have claimed three lives. When public health emergencies or outbreaks occur, the CDC activates the Director's Emergency Operation Center (DEOC) [here is a photo of the DEOC]. One of the core components of the DEOC is the Joint Information Center (JIC) led by the Emergency Communication System (ECS), which is an agency wide risk communication activity led by the National Center for Health Marketing (NCHM). [Note: CDC loves its acronyms!] The ECS is an amazing group of CDC professionals who spring into action when needed and work tirelessly, including nights and weekends, to help save and protect countless lives through health and risk communication targeted at professionals and the public. Watching the dedicated and professional response of the DEOC and the ECS in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year was truly inspiring.
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Posted by: Jay at 6:00 PM on Wednesday, October 11, 2006Submit a comment
It is my pleasure to welcome our first "guest blogger" to health marketing musings. The following remarks are from my colleague Dan Rutz, MPH, the Associate Director of Communication Science from the CDC National Center for Preparedness, Detection, and Control of Infectious Diseases (NCPDCID). He shares interesting and important observations about the frailty of our human experience and our communication science, and he calls for strengthening both. As always, reader comments are welcome and encouraged.
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Posted by: Dan Rutz at 2:10 PM on Friday, September 8, 2006Submit a comment
More than any other question, the one I am most frequently asked has to do with the name of our center at CDC, the National Center for Health Marketing (NCHM): "What is health marketing?" Other common questions include "What is the difference between health communication and health marketing?" "Is it the same thing as social marketing?" and "Why is CDC trying to change the name of our field?!?" In this, my second blog entry, I'll try to answer some of these questions and share my thoughts on the sensitive issue of disciplinary names and identities.
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Posted by: Jay at 3:45 PM on Tuesday, August 22, 2006Submit a comment
Legendary newsman Daniel Schorr once observed, "If you don't exist in the media, for all practical purposes, you don't exist." The same can be said today for the web—if you don't have an online presence, and if you don't show up in Google, for all practical purposes, you don't exist. Therefore, I'm happy to announce that the National Center for Health Marketing (NCHM) at the CDC finally exists!
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Posted by: Jay at 3:45 PM on Thursday, July 13, 2006Submit a comment
Dr. Jay M. Bernhardt is the Director of the National Center for Health Marketing at the CDC. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of its authors and may not represent the official positions of the Centers for Disease Control or the Department of Health and Human Services.