Strategic questions for consumer-based health communications.

Using the consumer-oriented approach of social and commercial marketers, this article presents a process for crafting messages designed to improve people's health behaviors. The process, termed consumer-based health communications (CHC), transforms scientific recommendations into message strategies that are relevant to the consumer. The core of CHC is consumer research conducted to understand the consumer's reality, and thereby allowing six strategic questions to be answered. The immediate result of the CHC process is a strategy statement--a few pages that lay out who the target consumer is, what action should be taken, what to promise and how to make the promise credible, how and when to reach him or her, and what image to convey. The strategy statement then guides the execution of all communication efforts, be they public relations, mass media, direct marketing, media advocacy, or interpersonal influence. It identifies the most important "levers" for contact with the consumer. Everyone from creative specialists through management and program personnel can use the strategy statement as a touchstone to guide and judge the effectiveness of their efforts. The article provides a step by step illustration of the CHC process using the 5 A Day campaign as an example.

Putting the first audience first: conducting useful evaluation for a risk-related government agency.

The risk communication practitioner in a government agency has two essential, interdependent tasks. One is to help develop and monitor effective communication programs with various external public audiences. The other task is to do the same thing for the senior government managers whose support is a prerequisite to addressing the first audience. Hence, the second audience--the manager--is really the first. This paper addresses ways in which communication practitioners can satisfy this crucial audience. A profile of these managers suggests that they would find it highly beneficial to have more control over the public problems they encounter, especially in view of the growing pressures to do more with less and demonstrate "customer satisfaction." They would rather avoid crises than manage them. And they would rather have their bosses praise their successes than challenge their budgets or punish their perceived difficulties or failures. Communication practitioners who can help them attain such benefits will find their efforts in great demand. They would be helpful team members who provide timely insights that can make and show agency success. We offer ten ways for communication practitioners to be more useful which focus their current strengths on satisfying senior managers' needs by becoming more valuable members of the program team. By becoming more useful to the senior manager they serve both the agency and its publics.

Identification and analysis of an alcelaphine herpesvirus 1 (AHV-1) cDNA clone expressing a fusion protein recognized by AHV-1-neutralizing antisera.

Rabbit antiserum to psoralen-inactivated alcelaphine herpesvirus 1 (AHV-1) virions was shown to react specifically with AHV-1-infected cells by indirect immunofluorescence. Western blot analysis using this antiserum identified a 15-kD virion protein that was also detected in infected-cell proteins between 12 and 144 h p.i., and a 37-kD protein present in infected cells between 24 and 120 h p.i. A cDNA library was constructed using mRNA obtained from AHV-1-infected fetal mouflon sheep kidney (FMSK) cells at 48 h p.i., when infected-cell proteins detected by antiserum were in abundance. Screening of the library with the rabbit anti-AHV-1 serum identified several positive clones. Southern blot analysis showed that one clone, designated 8'a, hybridized to a 4.4 kb HindIII fragment of AHV-1 DNA. This AHV-1 cDNA clone expressed a fusion protein that was recognized by serum from a naturally and asymptomatically infected white-bearded wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus albojubatus). The insert was sequenced and found to contain 833 bp. A search of the GenBank database for related sequences revealed greater than 40% homology to several other gammaherpesviruses: herpesvirus saimiri, cottontail herpesvirus, and Epstein-Barr virus.

Health communications to older Americans as a special population. The National Cancer Institute's consumer-based approach.

BACKGROUND: Focus groups conducted by the National Cancer Institute in 1990 revealed that a multitude of fears, anxieties, and negative perceptions underlie the attitudes and behaviors of older Americans with respect to cancer. This central finding suggested that a communications approach aimed at encouraging cancer screening and early detection behavior among older Americans would need to consider the pervasiveness of these fears and not focus on health benefits alone. METHODS: To explore consumer reactions to a new fear acknowledgment/self-empowerment communications strategy, three alternative positioning ads (or concepts) reflecting the strategy were prepared and evaluated through 29 in-depth interviews with members of the target audience. RESULTS: Results confirmed the underlying fear of cancer found in earlier focus groups, a step which was critical for assessing the general strategic approach embodied in the ads. The idea that older people operate from a base of widespread fear and need to be empowered to take charge of their health resonates with and makes sense to the intended audience. A single ad concept was developed from the original three that reflects the feedback of the interviewees. CONCLUSIONS: Using the approach of fear acknowledgment/self-empowerment with older Americans is likely to affect the target audience positively. As a whole, respondents in the study considered the ads that embodied this strategy to be empathetic, helpful, and easy to relate to.

Application of polymerase chain reaction to detect animals latently infected with agents of malignant catarrhal fever.

Oligonucleotide primers derived from alcelaphine herpesvirus 1 (AHV-1) isolate WC11 DNA, the first identified agent of malignant catarrhal fever (MCF), were used to assay blood lymphocyte DNA using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Multiple species of exotic ruminants were examined to determine the suitability of this technique for detecting animals that may be latently infected. To correlate the PCR results with those of serology, serum samples were obtained from each animal concurrently with lymphocyte collection and subjected to an AHV-1 virus-neutralization assay (VNA). A total of 86 MCF-susceptible animals were tested, and the results of the VNA and PCR assays were compared. PCR results were positive for 44 animals. Of these, 13 were positive by VNA. Animals positive by both VNA and PCR were all wildebeest, the asymptomatic carriers of AHV-1, confirming the ability of the primers to amplify AHV-1 sequence. Positive PCR results from species other than wildebeest may represent sequence amplified from viruses related to AHV-1, which may not induce antibodies capable of neutralizing the WC11 isolate used in the VNA. This study demonstrates that PCR is capable of detecting the presence of MCF agents in various populations of captive ruminants prior to the appearance of clinical MCF so that the sources of infection can be more reliably ascertained.

Insights into the physician's role in mammography utilization among older women.

Women who receive routine medical care and those who see obstetrician-gynecologists are more likely to get mammograms. However, fewer women see these physicians as they grow older. Results indicate that, as a group, older women see a different mixture of physicians, and the drop in mammography referrals due to obstetrician-gynecologist office visit decline is not replaced by compensating referral patterns from other physician groups. All physicians should recommend mammograms to all of their older female patients; opportunities for doing so exist if they broaden their view of when such recommendations are appropriate. It is particularly important for nongynecologists to remember that their older patients may no longer see a gynecologist and will not receive a mammography recommendation from anyone else.

Utilization of screening mammography--1990.

Although much has been accomplished in the last few years toward the early detection of breast cancer, we are far from a goal of universal acceptance of the recommended preventive health program of screening mammography. To take an analogy from the Papanicolaou smear, we are somewhere in the 1960s. Both women and physicians have more to learn, and they need to transfer that knowledge into practice.