Effective media-public health collaboration in a public health emergency: Soaring obesity and chronic disease rates

Public health advocates often engage the media to get their message out in a public health emergency, but sometimes it happens the other way around. This session will explore the impact of the yearlong Charleston Gazette series, The Shape We're In, which included 55 high-profile newspaper articles about West Virginia's leading rates of obesity and chronic disease. The presenter created this series to stimulate sustained debate and action among individuals, agencies and policy makers. She extended its impact by forming partnerships with several statewide non-media networks, including the state social worker network, the Healthy Kids and Families Coalition, the Association of Counties and the West Virginia University Extension Service. The presenter will discuss these collaborations and help participants create plans for similar media-public health collaborations in their own areas. She will outline impacts attributed to the series, including a new policy expanding the time devoted to physical activity by the state afterschool network and use of the series by state legislators as study materials. She will discuss post-publication plans to extend the series reach, including collaboration with the West Virginia Prevention Research Center on a Web site classroom resource for higher education and trainings sponsored by the state's Community Transformation Grant to help local health advocates stimulate media coverage of chronic disease in their communities. The presenter interviewed more than 200 people to create 55 high-profile newspaper articles which were linked to national research and resources, with the help of the West Virginia Prevention Research Center.