BMSG analyzed how investing in health and prevention versus crime and punishment appears in the news outlets that cover California communities devastated by health inequities.
Through this project, BMSG is helping community organizers to build their strategic communication capacity and use media advocacy to advance local policies that support equitable health outcomes.
What will it take to create a sea change in how Americans think — and talk — about abortion? To help answer this question, BMSG partnered with the Sea Change Program to analyze how abortion and stigma are portrayed in the news.
BMSG was commissioned to develop strategic communications for The California Endowment’s Center for Health Communities. To that end, we created a Communicating for Change training curriculum, which we use to teach public health leaders to think strategically about creating healthy communities, speaking and writing effectively, and crafting solid policy-oriented answers to difficult questions. Since BMSG first developed the curriculum, hundreds of TCE grantees have learned concrete skills to engage the media strategically to advance their community health policy goals.
BMSG provided technical assistance to Portland State University (PSU) to help evaluate news portrayals of the Voices for Healthy Kids initiative and other Robert Wood Johnson Foundation efforts designed to promote a culture of health.
This study examined the marketing tactics from soda companies and assesses their actions in light of how the tobacco industry employed similar strategies to thwart regulation, cultivate a positive business climate, and gain public support. Additionally, this study investigated the latest cause marketing campaigns from leading soda companies, including how they employ social media and to what extent they mimic corporate social responsibility strategies pioneered by tobacco companies.
Research has found that most U.S. residents do not recognize the contributions that Latinos, the nation’s largest ethnic minority, make to society or understand the barriers they face. Making people more aware of these realities can encourage more U.S. policymakers, leaders, and the public to support expanded access to opportunities for everyone — including Latino communities. One way to increase awareness and spur action is to elevate coverage of Latinos in the news media.
With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research program (and in collaboration with the Public Health Advocacy Institute and National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity) BMSG studied news depictions of fast food zoning ordinances to help researchers, policymakers and public health advocates better understand debates on zoning.
To better understand how advocates, the food industry, policymakers and others have shaped discussions about school nutrition guidelines since the passage of Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, BMSG and the Public Health Advocacy Institute examined news coverage and legislative documents from several states.
For this project, BMSG helped the Family Assets Initiative in its efforts to build the capacity of state-based child-advocacy organizations to analyze the needs of children and low-income and working families and to advance policies supporting those families and children.
