“We know PSA campaigns can make a big impact; that they can improve people’s lives.”

The Advertising (Ad) Council has just launched a new version of its digital distribution platform, PSA Central, which is geared toward PSA directors and media outlets, but is also valuable for anyone who wants to share the messages including educators and public health practitioners. The site offers easy access to video, print, radio, online, mobile and outdoor media public service advertisements that range from bullying prevention to food safety education.

Public Service Advertisements (PSAs) may actually date back to the civil war when newspapers offered free advertising space to the U.S. government to advertise bonds whose revenues were used to pay for the war effort. These days, PSAs are much more likely to be public safety messages such as a United Kingdom video PSA, downloaded over 2 million times on YouTube, reminding people just why they should buckle up in a car. And more importantly, these efforts are being measured and tracked to show impact on health behavior change and health outcomes, such as the Ad Council’s drunk driving prevention campaign that has encouraged 70 percent of Americans to take action to stop a friend from driving drunk.

NewPublicHealth recently spoke with Peggy Conlon, president and CEO of the Ad Council, about the public health messages PSAs can convey and how new media has expanded their reach.

NewPublicHealth: How have PSAs evolved over the years?

Peggy Conlon: PSAs have evolved quite a bit. The Ad Council is 71 years old and back in the earliest days PSAs were seen in newspapers and heard over the radio. Since then they have been showcased on just about all media platforms. In the 90s we were introduced to the Internet and everything changed forever. The Internet added another new dimension to our ability, in a very tangible and personal way, to engage communities around social issues.

NPH: What are some of the most effective and iconic campaigns in public service advertising?

Sesuagno Mola of Ethiopia, married at five, never went to school and had her first child at 14. More children would have followed in quick succession, but Sesuagno got involved with a program in her town run by Girl Up developed by the UN Foundation that empowers young girls to create a life for themselves and their families well beyond poverty and illiteracy.

In Sesuagno’s case, she joined a program developed to help teach literacy, and provide information about family planning, gardening and life skills to help reduce food contamination.

Through the program, Sesuagno learned to build shelves to keep her family’s food off the floor, built a stove that sends the smoke out of the house instead of into her lungs—a cause of pneumonia and death for thousands of girls and women in the developing world—and jointly decided with her husband, because of her time in the program, that they would wait to have their next child.

“What we support are comprehensive services for adolescent services for girls to help improve access to health services, education and safe spaces,” says Andrea Austin, a spokesperson for the UN Foundation.

Aiding in the response and recovery effort in Oklahoma following last week’s tornadoes are several state disaster medical assistance teams (DMATs), requested by Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin. The New Mexico DMAT includes a member, Cliff Rees, who is experienced in law as it pertains to public health emergencies. Rees is the practice director of the Network for Public Health Law’s Western Region.

NewPublicHealth spoke with James G. Hodge, Jr., JD, LLM, Principal Investigator/Director of the Network for Public Health Law’s Western Region, about how knowledge of law during an emergency can help speed assistance to victims.

NewPublicHealth: What is Cliff Rees’ role on the ground?

James Hodge: As a member of the DMAT team, he is well trained in many areas of response and is working with his team to provide needed assistance on multiple fronts. However, Cliff is also capable of assessing legal concerns on the ground if they come up.

NPH: What are some of those concerns?

The tornado that ripped through Moore, Okla., on May 20 left at least 24 people dead and nearly 400 injured. More than a mile wide in places, the tornado left billions of dollars in damage in its wake. The people of Moore and the surrounding area are now burying the friends and family members lost that day and the slow process of rebuilding has begun.

Among the first to respond to the natural disaster was Team Rubicon, a collection of hundreds of U.S. military veterans who have been provided disaster relief around the world since the organization was founded in 2010. The name for the Moore effort is “Operation: Starting Gun”—both for their quick response to the tornado’s devastation and for the Sooners of the Oklahoma Land Rush. They expect as many as 250 volunteers, of which 90 percent are veterans.

As school winds down and camps and sports prepare for the summer season, a new study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published in the American Journal of Public Health on sports-related traumatic brain injuries in youth sports, is generating deserved attention.

The study, by Hosea Harvey, JD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Law at the Temple University Beasley School of Law, found that while forty four states and Washington, D.C.,  passed youth sport TBI laws  between 2009 and 2012, none of the laws focus on preventing the injuries in the first place. The laws on the books deal primarily with increasing coaches’ and parents’ ability to identify and respond to traumatic brain injuries and reducing the immediate risk of multiple brain injuries.

>>Read more in a Q&A with the Babe Ruth League Inc. about how youth sports leagues are making strides to prevent injuries.

Harvey’s conclusion is that continued research and evaluation is needed to develop a more comprehensive reduction in youth sport traumatic brain injuries.

NewPublicHealth: What did your study address?

Hosea Harvey: I looked at traumatic brain injury (TBI) laws that were passed at the state level that purported to deal with the problem of youth TBIs in sports statewide. I looked at every related state law passed between 2009 through the end of 2012, though most states only had one law that they passed that dealt with youth sports TBIs during that period.

NPH: And your study found that no state that right now has a law that says this is what you have to do in order to prevent these concussions in the first place?

May is Stroke Awareness Month, a good time to bump up the percentage of Americans who recognize the most common symptoms of a stroke from only 38 percent, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey. Speedily identifying stroke symptoms and calling for an ambulance is essential because people who get to an emergency room for treatment within three hours are healthier three months later than people for whom stroke care was delayed, according to the CDC.

New this year to help increase symptom awareness is a free smartphone app from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association called F.A.S.T. The acronym stands for common stroke symptoms and a critical call to action: Face drooping; Arm weakness; Speech difficulty; and Time to call 9-1-1. The app also includes a link to additional symptoms that bystanders and caregivers can access and a 9-1-1 button to call an ambulance. Using the 9-1-1 button saves time by not having to back out of the app to dial the number manually. And using the button also generates an automatic time stamp, which gives emergency room staff a good indication of when symptoms began. Some treatments can only be given within a specific time window.

A community needs assessment of a Chinese-American community in New York City several years ago found multiple barriers to physical activity for children and teens including parents unable to supervise kids at play because of long work hours, unsafe neighborhoods, limited knowledge or access to existing programs, financial hardship, inadequate support for physical activity in schools, limited time due to competing priorities such as academics, and too much time in front of video games, computer screens and television. To increase exercise time and options and help to reduce obesity rates among Chinese-American youth, public health professionals from the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center sought out funding from the New York State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to create the Chinatown JUMP (Joining Urban Partners for More Physical Activity) program.

>>Read more on New York's Health Improvement Plan, which sets out a plan for similar community health assessments and cross-sectoral collaborations in response to these findings.

Chinatown JUMP currently works with eight afterschool programs to incorporate daily physical activity into the curriculum of these academic programs, blending activity with learning. Program goals include:

• Promote healthier and fit children by educating them and their families about the correlation between exercise and staying healthy.
• Increase staff capacity to support students’ healthier lifestyle through training and technical assistance.
• Establish an afterschool culture that supports physical activity as well as academic achievement.

The program works hard to incorporate parents’ support and involvement as well. Participating students in iMove receive a community resource guide with information about free and low-cost recreational centers and public spaces in the neighborhood to share with their parents. Parents are also invited to workshops on the importance of physical activity and healthy eating habits.

NewPublicHealth recently spoke with Susan Yee, Associate Director of Programs at the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, about Chinatown JUMP.

NewPublicHealth: What is the Chinatown JUMP program and what do you think sets it apart from other programs with similar goals?

Susan Yee: Chinatown JUMP’s goal is to try to improve opportunities for more physical activity in the Manhattan Chinatown area in order to create sustainable changes within the community.

The Second National Health Impact Assessment (HIA) Meeting takes place September 24-25 in Washington, D.C., and the deadline for abstract submissions is fast approaching. The conference will bring together policymakers, public health professionals, HIA practitioners; community-based organizations; researchers and decision makers from non-health agencies all who may use or rely on the results of HIAs in the fields of planning, transportation, housing, agriculture, energy, environment, and education.

The planning committee for this year’s meeting is currently seeking abstracts for a variety of sessions, particularly from presenters who will be releasing new research. Abstracts, due by Wednesday, May 29, should clearly state what new information will be presented and its impact on a specific sector or the field of HIA more generally.

Aside from the typical poster sessions and presentations, the HIA Meeting will also feature opportunities to dive deep on specific and cross-cutting topics.

CDC Issues First Comprehensive Report on Children’s Mental Health in the United States
As many as one in five American children under the age of 17 has a diagnosable mental disorder according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report is the first expansive report on children's mental health ever done by the U.S. government and looked at six conditions:

• attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• behavioral or conduct disorders
• mood and anxiety disorders
• autism spectrum disorders
• substance abuse
• Tourette syndrome

The most common disorder for children age 3 through 17 is ADHD (7 percent) followed by behavioral or conduct problems (3.5 percent), anxiety (3 percent), depression (2 percent), and  autism spectrum disorders (1 percent).

Five percent of teens reported abusing or being dependent on illegal drugs, 4 percent abused alcohol and 3 percent reported smoking cigarettes regularly. Boys were more likely than girls to have the disorders. Read more on mental health.

New PSAs Help Parents Talk to Younger Kids about the Dangers of Underage Drinking
“Talk. They Hear You,” is a new national public service announcement (PSA) campaign from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to empower parents to talk to children as young as nine about the dangers of underage drinking. SAMHSA research shows that more than a quarter of American youth engage in underage drinking, and  though there has been progress in reducing the extent of underage drinking in recent years, particularly among those aged 17 and younger, the rates of underage drinking are still unacceptably high, according to SAMHSA. A report from late last year shows that 26.6 percent of 12-20 year-olds report drinking in the month before they were surveyed and 8.7 percent of them purchased their own alcohol the last time they drank, despite the fact that all fifty states and the District of Columbia currently have laws prohibiting the purchase and use of alcoholic beverages by anyone under age 21.  

“Even though drinking is often glamorized, the truth is that underage drinking can lead to poor academic performance, sexual assault, injury, and even death,” said said SAMHSA Administrator Pamela S. Hyde.

The goal of the new PSA is to help parents start a conversation about alcohol before their children become teenagers. Read more on addiction.

Advocacy Groups Petition FDA to Ban Menthol Flavored Cigarettes
In response to a Citizen Petition by close to twenty health and tobacco control advocacy groups, the Food and Drug Administration has opened a docket for public comment on banning menthol in cigarettes. In 2009, according to the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium, the lead group on the petition, Congress banned all flavors in cigarettes except menthol, and directed the FDA to decide whether continued sale of menthol cigarettes is “appropriate for public health." According to the petition, menthol cigarettes are the source of addiction for nearly half of all teen smokers. Read more on tobacco.

While a growing number of major league sports teams have policies on concussion assessment and return to play, many youth and school sports leagues and teams do not have similar rules, despite thousands of sports-related traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) reported in children and adolescents every year.

Hosea H. Harvey, PhD, JD, Assistant Professor of Law in Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, has just published an article in the American Journal of Public Health analyzing how this health issue is being addressed across the country. He found that there are laws dealing with concussions in youth sports in 44 states and D.C.—but none are focused on preventing the injuries. The laws only address detecting the injuries or preventing an additional injury after one has already occurred.

The study also revealed that many laws don’t draw on evidence around what works. For example, most state laws establish a minimum 24-hour period of youth athlete removal, but there is no scientific agreement about the optimal minimal time someone who has suffered a sports-related TBI should be removed from play. The study utilized an open source dataset from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grantee Public Health Law Research called LawAtlas.

>>Read the full study.

NewPublicHealth previously spoke with Harvey and Kerri McGowan Lowrey, JD, MPH, Senior Staff Attorney with the Network for Public Health Law — Eastern Region, about legal and legislative approaches to addressing concussions in youth sports. The previous interview is included below: