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Having an Effective Presentation

 Hello all, I write to you a mere 24 hours before our final Health Communications class and our long awaited final presentation on HPVAX. My group and I have been looking forward to presenting our hard work for some time now. We have spent months gathering all of the necessary information and creating our background, audience segmentation, objectives, communication objective, action plan and evaluation. We are looking forward to sharing with the class our hard work. Before we present I thought it would be helpful to do some research and come up with some tips on how to effectively present a communications plan in a group of 5 people. So here are some of my tips: 1. Introduce yourselves and the topic first. This is a way to hook the audience and have them know what the topic will be on 2. Make smooth transitions. There are 5 people in our group and so we have to make sure the transitions are effortless and smooth as not to distract the audience 3. Don't read off the slides word for ...
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Let’s Talk About Sex: Part 2

  When our group had initially discussed our idea for the communications campaign, we wanted to target heterosexual men 18-26 in Harlem to get the HPV vaccine. After doing some research, we saw that there was a high need for specifically the men who have sex with men (MSM) group and so we narrowed our population down. Reflecting back, I am interested how our campaign would’ve differed had our target group been more broadly men 18-26 in Harlem. What would’ve been the key differences in our objectives, strategies and tactics? The research shows that the MSM population is more likely than heterosexual males to not use protection during sex and in turn have a higher STI rate. Interestingly, they are more likely to be trust healthcare professionals and be open to getting the HPV vaccine. Thus, for our campaign we focused heavily on behavioral changes around utilizing safe sex practices and on increasing knowledge and awareness around the risks of HPV and the vaccine.   Given the ...
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Teamwork!

This blog is about our journey to our final health communication plan. Over the last weeks, we have learned a lot about models of behavior change, project goals, outcome objectives, and communication styles. But what I have also learned is that the best part about working on this project is our team.    We all had to find our ways of how to deal with the high demands of creating a whole health communication intervention during a busy semester - without having any experience in the design of such an ambitious project. But what has been extremely helpful for me were the four wonderful people I was grouped with for it. The way our group dynamic evolved was incredible. From careful, maybe even reluctant first conversations over collective frustration to common motivation and full power – we went through it all together. And we made it!   It has been a lot of work. But as busy as it was: in every single moment, I was able to rely on my fellow group members. Someone was always ...
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Final Reflection & Tips

 As the semester and our project come to a close, I wanted to take time to reflect on our project and how I will employ the skills I have learned in the future. I found the evaluation plan a helpful last assignment because it guided us through the intricate steps of determining how to measure progress throughout time. By separating indicators into three distinct groups (process, progress and summative), I was able to better distinguish the differences between them and the unique importance of them all. The sample budgets also enabled me to better visualize how this plan could be implemented in real life. It showed me that this plan could be more than merely an exercise for class! Overall, I appreciate how we had to zero in on a very specific public health problem and target population. At first, researching HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer among young adult men in Harlem was a challenge, as there is limited information about this population in this geographic area. However, after g...
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Budgeting for Evaluation: A Critical Step in the Process

   In addition to working on the budget for tactics for our communication plan I was also responsible for working on the budget for evaluation. Budgeting for evaluation may not be the most exciting portion of this project but it is incredibly vital to long-term success. Evaluation is critical to see if our communication plan made a difference and reached the goals we set out to achieve. This is especially valuable to show funders and project partner. Evaluation helps you determine if your project was successful and if it is evaluation data can be useful for attracting more funding sources for future endeavors. Evaluation is especially important for our group’s topic because the reason we were drawn to the topic of HPV-related cancers in men who have sex with men aged 18-26 because very little has been done before on this topic in this population. We need to evaluate the success of our program in order to understand what messages and tactics are effective with our different gr...
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Process, Progress, Whatever… We’re Getting Somewhere.

You might think that designing a health communication plan is all about actions. What are we doing? When? How? But the best plan is nothing if you don’t know if it’s working. So, how can we measure the effect our carefully designed communication intervention is actually having? Let me tell you, exploring the field of evaluation is sometimes confusing, but absolutely worth it!   Evaluation isn’t only something that happens after everything’s done; it’s also an essential part of the health communication program planning and implementation phases! Formative evaluation starts before the program development itself. From getting an idea of what the real health problem is and where it comes from over exchanging information with key groups and community stakeholders to pretesting strategies: this is all evaluation! It helps us to identify and define goals and objectives, supports collaboration with program staff, partners, stakeholders, and key groups, and guides us on our way to developin...
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Incorporating Pharmacists into the HPVAX Action Plan

    Throughout the course of this project, my group and I have discovered that local pharmacists can play an important role in HPV vaccine uptake among harder to reach community members. Compared to primary care providers, pharmacists tend to be more accessible, have extended hours, and walk-in options. Pharmacies are typically situated more conveniently in communities that major health centers, as well. Additionally, Gov. Hochul recently signed legislation allowing pharmacists to administer HPV vaccines. The combination of these factors widens the opportunity for vaccination uptake among our primary audience: young adult MSM in Harlem.      In the action plan, we honed in on how to best raise awareness among pharmacists about the need for increased vaccination among MSM in Harlem. One tactic we came up with is called "Data Bites: A Lunch & Learn Series." This monthly series will allow local pharmacists and physicians to get to know one another and disc...
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