Summary
Contents
Advances in health care have made extraordinary changes in the life expectancy and level of vitality of the average American. Still, according to the U. S. Surgeon General, a full one-half of all premature deaths are due to lifestyle and, therefore, preventable. This important collection presents a comparative synthesis of what works and what does not in mass media health campaigns. High priority is given to coverage of substance abuse prevention campaigns, but programs on AIDS, smoking, teenage pregnancy, heart disease, Alzheimer's Disease, and vehicle seat belt use are also reviewed. Designing Health Communication Campaigns deepens our understanding of how to design, implement, and evaluate mass media campaigns by highlighting the contributions of media experts who add a human element to the various campaign experiences they describe. This work is indispensable in a fast-evolving field where it serves as both a reference and a concordance for interpreting many other analytic sources. Campaign designers, researchers, communications scholars and graduate students as well as policymakers and program funders will find the book to be valuable in helping make critical decisions about effective mass communication campaigns. “This volume is valuable because it emphasizes actual experiences, and is thus recommended as an adjunct to classic texts in the field. Graduate; faculty; professional.” – Choice
Interviews with Campaign Designers/Experts
Following are 29 interviews, presented in alphabetical order according to interviewees' last names. A standard format is used: Each interview is introduced with the respondent's name and primary organizational affiliation, a brief preamble states the interviewee's background and experience in mass media health campaigns, and a narrative summary of the interview follows.
All of the interviewees have had experience in designing campaigns, directly or indirectly. They include campaign scholars who have helped to shape campaigns and media professionals who do work that is included in campaigns.
While we edited these interviews for coherence, structure, and brevity, our intent was to preserve the flavor of the interviewees' words as much as possible. Thus colloquial expressions and interrupted trains of thought have ...
