I hope many of the readers of this blog were able to attend the National Conference for Health Communication, Marketing and Media, held in Atlanta a few weeks ago. This was our third conference, which brought together more than 1,000 professionals in health and risk communication, social marketing, ehealth, media relations, new media, and many other related disciplines. As a health communication and marketing professional, this conference is my favorite two and a half days of the year. This year’s conference was an international event with representatives from 14 countries attending, including Botswana, Canada, China, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Georgia, Great Britain, Guam, Guatemala, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania, and Thailand. There is something very special about spending several days together with peers in profound intellectual stimulation and social engagement, all for a greater purpose - to help protect and improve the health of people across the US and around the world.

With our conference theme - Participation Powers Prevention - we wanted to reinforce a core concept that cuts across all of our respective fields and disciplines: The effectiveness of our public health interventions to reach and impact target audiences is directly related to the level of audience participation in the intervention planning, development, and implementation. Whether we call it public participation, public engagement, customer centricity, or another name, establishing and ensuring deep audience engagement is a fundamental part of effective public health. With the major challenges and opportunities we are facing right now, participation is more important than ever.

We are currently in the midst of a worldwide influenza pandemic - the first one in several decades. At the CDC, we have been working non-stop since April to help understand and control the outbreak and to do everything we can to prevent disease and death among people exposed to it. I’m proud of the work that CDC, our partners, and collaborators have done so far, but the remaining communication challenges are immense. To address these challenges, CDC and our partners are rapidly undertaking audience research and public engagement to better understand people’s needs related to novel H1N1 transmission, communication, and vaccine preparations. Social media have emerged as an important strategy in this outbreak, in large part because they empower information receivers and encourage them to actively participate in the dialogue. So, in this sense, we expect participation to help power prevention as we do all we can, as quickly as possible, to involve the public and health professionals in our planning, our strategies, and our messages.

While the pandemic presents significant challenges, we are also facing an enormous opportunity to make a fundamental difference in the health of every American. Health reform gives us a real chance to transform our current “sick care” health system, which is largely based on providing expensive treatments for chronic diseases, to a “health system” built on creating the conditions for prevention and wellness. Our new CDC Director, Dr. Tom Frieden, often speaks of focusing on “winnable battles” that can make the biggest difference for the communities we serve, and of health reform as a winnable battle that we cannot afford to lose. In the spirit of participation powering prevention, conference keynote speaker Bill Novelli implored the attendees to do everything possible to participate in the reform process to support an outcome that emphasizes prevention and wellness, and the power of communication, marketing, and media to help create the conditions for better health.

Finally, I want to draw your attention to the newly formed Health and Risk Communication Network, (HRCN), a free, voluntary online social network launched prior to the conference. At the time of this posting, there are more than 500 members. Here we can engage in discussions, exchange ideas, share events and best practices, and connect with others who share similar objectives. For example, you can now read the full text of Bill Novelli’s brilliant conference speech on the HRCN. I encourage you to sign up and become an active participant in the network.

Whatever our issues - whether they are mental health or cancer prevention, influenza or obesity, HIV, malaria, or climate change, or even advancing and organizing our fields, we will not succeed in our endeavors without strong, strategic, ongoing participation from the populations we serve.