Purpose and Goals of the Chapter

This chapter discusses health communication, which is one of the most rapidly growing areas of public relations.

Outline of Key Chapter Themes

• Health communication can encompass communication for a variety of organizations within the health-care industry--from a government organization like the Centers for Disease Control to pharmaceutical companies or even a hospital or nonprofit advocacy organization.
• The Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia executed a campaign to raise the visibility of mental health issues across the country.
• The American Heart Association’s Cedar Valley chapter put together the “Go Red for Women” campaign to raise awareness and money to fight heart disease.
• The Halo Foundation case examines advocacy on behalf of a rare disease and the challenges of working with a difficult client.
• Donate Life Ohio Campaign: Save a Life. Be a Donor shows how personal stories can be effectively used to raise awareness of a difficult topic.

Chapter Outline

Using the Lived Experience as a Powerful Advocacy and Awareness Strategy in Australia

Situation
Research
Action Planning
Communication
Evaluation

Cedar Valley American Heart Association “Go Red for Women” Special Event

Situation
Research
Action Planning
Communication
Evaluation

Working With a Difficult Client: Examining the Tensions Experienced While Developing the Halo Syndrome Campaign

Situation
Research
Action Planning
Communication
Evaluation

Donate Life Ohio Campaign: Save a Life. Be a Donor

Case Summaries

Using the Lived Experience as a Powerful Advocacy and Awareness Strategy in Australia

The Mental Illness Foundation of Australia knew that the direct voice of consumers and caregivers had enormous potential influence with politicians if it combined authentic stories drawn from personal experience and offered productive ideas on how to improve mental health care. The organization settled on the creation of the “It’s Time to Act NOW on Mental Illness” campaign. The campaign slogan, “It’s time to act NOW on mental illness,” reflected both urgency and a call to action.

Two press releases about volunteer trainings were distributed to 200 newspapers and 100 radio stations across Australia. In each of the cities where the trainings were held, Media Key secured media opportunities for the trainers. These spokespeople appeared on the top-rated shows of the national and local networks of ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation). They also appeared on Sky News, as well as several top-rated radio programs. NAMI’s representative appeared live on Life Matters, the morning show that is Australia’s version of The Today Show in the United States.

Cedar Valley American Heart Association “Go Red for Women” Special Event

The GRFW luncheon was an afternoon tea/luncheon event (1:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.). The rationale was women could come from work to the event and then go home or to an afterwork activity. The committee developed a 4-min survivor video and other collaterals. At the event, there was a booth where attendees could video stream their message of “My Life is Why.” For example, a My Life is Why message may be “I live and work for my children; or I live because I survived a quadruple bypass heart surgery and my family depends on me.”

Working With a Difficult Client: Examining the Tensions Experienced While Developing the Halo Syndrome Campaign

Halo syndrome is classified as an orphan disease--a disease that affects fewer than 200,000 individuals around the world. Developing a public relations campaign about an orphan disease comes with many unique challenges. As the campaign began, we soon realized that we had an unexpected challenge that we would have to attend to--learning how to work with a difficult client. During the course of our campaign, we encountered multiple dilemmas associated with fulfilling our responsibilities to the organization.

Donate Life Ohio Campaign: Save a Life. Be a Donor

Donate Life Ohio, a coalition of the state’s organ, eye, and tissue recovery agencies, partnered with the Second Chance Trust Fund and an Ohio public relations agency to determine how a communication campaign could motivate Ohioans to become registered organ donors. They created a “Do It Now” college competition to engage college students. A team of public relations students at Kent State University in Ohio competed with teams from 12 universities in the statewide Do It Now initiative. Each team had a specific target number of new registrants based on population within its respective regions.