publications

Advertising unhealthy foods to children

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Despite the efforts of nutrition advocates and health educators, food and beverage companies are a major source of children’s education about food, and most of the marketing messages they receive are for unhealthy products. In this entry for the Encyclopedia of Health Communication, we provide an overview of food marketing to kids, its link to health inequities in communities of color, and the policy landscape for intervening.

Video: Engaging communications to create healthy environments

Thursday, September 04, 2014

In this July 23 presentation for the 2014 Colorado Health Symposium, BMSG Director Lori Dorfman discusses why health education and data don’t go far enough toward improving health at the population-level, and how communication, particularly media advocacy, can be used to change policy and create environments that better support health for everyone.

The debate on regulating menthol cigarettes: Closing a dangerous loophole vs freedom of choice

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Stoking fears of job loss and strategically positioning itself on the side of civil rights groups, the tobacco industry influenced news coverage of mentholated cigarettes — which disproportionately impact the health of African Americans — to prevent a ban on them, found researchers at BMSG and the Public Health Advocacy Institute in a study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Video: Corporations, consumption and protecting public health

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes cause 7 out of every 10 deaths in the United States. In this video, BMSG’s Lori Dorfman and public health attorney Michele Simon join Nicholas Freudenberg, author of Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption and Protecting Public Health, to discuss how the business practices of alcohol, tobacco, food and other industries are causing these illnesses and what tools, including policy, advocates can use to prevent them.

The origins of personal responsibility rhetoric in news coverage of the tobacco industry

Friday, April 18, 2014

To deflect blame for its products’ health harms, the tobacco industry consistently frames smoking as a personal issue rather than the responsibility of cigarette companies. A study from BMSG and our colleagues at the Public Health Advocacy Institute, published in the American Journal of Public Health, identifies when personal responsibility framing became a major element of the industry’s discourse and explores how its messages evolved over time to meet political and legal challenges.

Public health and media advocacy

Monday, March 24, 2014

Media advocacy can bolster public health practitioners’ efforts to advance social justice and work to solve some of our country’s most complex social and political issues. In this article, published in the American Review of Public Health, BMSG’s Lori Dorfman and Ingrid Daffner Krasnow discuss key components of media advocacy and offer tips for advocates, including framing pitfalls to avoid, ways to make data meaningful to broad audiences, and how to use compelling visuals to get a reporter’s attention.

Video: The power of the personal voice in media advocacy

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Effective storytelling is an important way for advocates to bring media attention to important public health issues. As the Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program’s Genoveva Islas points out in this talk as part of BMSG’s 20th anniversary series, if public health advocates don’t tell their own stories, someone else will, but from a different perspective. Along with CCROPP’s Brandie Banks-Bey, Islas shares three steps that advocates can take to get better at articulating the problems in their communities and what can be done to address them.

Issue 21: Two communities, two debates: News coverage of soda tax proposals in Richmond and El Monte

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

In 2012, the California cities of Richmond and El Monte made headlines when they asked voters to consider taxing soda and other sugary drinks. Wanting to avoid a regulatory precedent, the soda industry spent $4 million to oppose the ballot measures, which ultimately failed. In this news analysis, we explore how the tax proposals were portrayed in the news, what arguments were made both for and against them, and what this means for public health advocates looking to regulate sugary beverages in other communities.

Video: Beyond sound bites: The role of power in communication

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Values are an important part of communicating, but where do they come from and how are they created? Who gets to matter in public conversations, and how can advocates make their voices more powerful? In this talk, a part of BMSG’s 20th anniversary series, Praxis Project Executive Director Makani Themba discusses the role of institutional actors in producing values and encourages advocates to get involved in that process. She urges us to move beyond fleeting sound bites and develop a deeper communication strategy — one that addresses power imbalances and puts advocates in front of the mic.

State law approaches to address digital food marketing to youth: Full report

Thursday, December 19, 2013

The toll in human suffering and health costs from diet-related disease is stark. Addressing the digital marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to youth is a key step toward easing this toll and ensuring a healthy future. This report from the Public Health Advocacy Institute, Berkeley Media Studies Group and Center for Digital Democracy describes state legal approaches available to stem the harmful tide of digital food marketing targeted at children and teens.

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