Health Programs and Campaigns

My Health Communication class has been very informative and useful in helping me understand what it really takes to start a campaign. I'm slowly becoming acquainted with different terminologies such as a Communication/Persuasion Matrix in which incorporates parts and elements of communication such as source, channel, message, audience, destination and most importantly objective. I didn't really think about all the hard work and dedication that goes on behind the scene of creating an effective campaign. Thus this class is definitely an eye opener for me! I would like to learn and absorb as much as I can in this class that would enable me to come up with different health programs and campaigns in the future. I have always been so intrigued by the different health campaigns that are there to change people's behaviors to a healthier lifestyle. This is exactly what I like to do someday!!
In class, we had a discussion about the three most important elements that are involved in advertisements such as: sex, looks, and money. I should say that I'm a bit disappointed in this way of promoting health. Of course, those programs and campaigns that use any of these components are more likely to succeed than not using them. In my opinion, people should care enough about their health that they should just be drawn to campaigns that are promoting healthy behaviors without the existence of a sex appeal on an ad. Therefore, a public health professional should be able to come up with attention grabbing ideas that wouldn't have to involve sex, looks, and money. I think our society is trained to think with their eyes. People all around the world admire beauty and beauty is not only found among humans but also of nature, places, animals, etc so why not use other beautiful things to increase their awareness? Why is this ad I've posted with the three naked women more likely to grab other women's attention for breast cancer awareness? Or maybe it doesn't, I'm not sure?


Anyways, after posting this picture in my blog I was looking for more health campaign ads and what I've noticed is that most of them ARE geared toward looks and sex. In addition, I've noticed some that you would be very disgusted by looking at them such as images of naked anorexic women. So now I guess both attractive and not so attractive ads would draw attention equally. Wouldn't you think? I wonder which would be more effective in changing people's perspective. In my opinion they both can and it really depends on the individual. My little research on different health campaign ads has made me more curious and fascinated about this class and I'm looking forward to learn more about these topics throughout the semester. Hopefully, by the end of this class I can come up with a great campaign ad and I wonder what I would use to send out MY message.

P.S I apologize if these images are not appropriate for class but they are health campaign ads that are being used, so I thought I share them. I also couldn't resist not posting the anti-smoking ad :)