Community Health
Social, physical, political and economic environments – which vary widely from town to town and even from neighborhood to neighborhood – have a strong effect on the health not only of individuals, but of entire communities, and the country as a whole. How do Americans think about health, and particularly, about food and fitness? Can we shift the conversation by using values and models that support an environmental perspective on community health?
Funders | Recommendations | Research | Products & Tools
Our Funders:
The California EndowmentThe WK Kellogg Food and Fitness Initiative
Our Recommendations
A comprehensive strategic message memo, Framing Community Health as if Food and Fitness Mattered, which synthesizes our research findings and recommends strategies to communicate more effectively about community health issues, particularly food and fitness.Framing Healthy Communities: Strategic Communications and the Social Determinants of Health (2007)
Details the results of experiments conducted as part of a larger study of health communications research funded by The California Endowment and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. This study aims to understand and produce better ways to engage the public in thinking about health outcomes as a result of social and environmental factors.
Our Research
Health Individualism: Findings from Cognitive Elicitations among Californians (2007) reports on cognitive interviews were conducted in four California communities to determine the mental models people use to reason about community health. This research funded by The California Endowment, has allowed us to more fully understand the dominant frame of health individualism that gets in the way of the public's appreciation for the shaping influence of community environments.Fitness as a Personal Ideal: Findings from Cognitive Elicitations in Colorado and Chicago (2007) reports on additional cognitive interviews conducted in Colorado and Chicago to further test and refine our understanding of the way thinking about food and fitness defaults to individual lifestyle.
Civic Wellbeing: An Analysis of Qualitative Research Among California Residents (2006) is a report of focus groups conducted to better understand the interplay between this dominant frame and the policies advocates seek to promote, and to probe the ability of such values frames as Prevention, Prosperity and Quality of Life to overcome the tendency for all discussion of health to reduce to individual responsibility.
Calories Not Communities (2007) is a media content analyses to identify the common frames used in the news to communicate issues related to food and physical activity.
Implications of the Consumer Frame for Food and Fitness (2007) a second content analysis, conducted from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, was undertaken to speculate on the probable impact on public understanding of common tropes employed in the media, including both texts and images, advertising and reporting.
Our Products and Tools
Framing Food and Fitness as a Public Issue - A toolkit containing Frequently Asked Questions, sample op-eds, and other communications resources on the issue.Two Ezines, Doing Social Math: Case Study in Framing Food and Fitness and Childhood Obesity are also available.
