Author: Jim

US political watchers were afforded a special treat recently, courtesy of the Texas legislature and State Senator Wendy Davis. If you haven’t heard the story, Ms. Davis spoke for eleven hours in an attempt to delay voting on a bill until after the Texas Senate’s session ended, effectively killing the bill. True filibusters are rare, filibusters that long even more rare. But that wasn’t even the coolest part.

The coolest part was that Ms. Davis had a cheering section. Hundreds of people jammed the legislature in support of her filibuster. A Twitter hashtag, #StandWithWendy, was spawned and trended internationally. But that wasn’t the biggest part of her cheering section. It was the people watching on YouTube:

Months before Ms. Davis’s vivid protest, the nonprofit news organization [The Texas Tribune], based a few blocks from the state Capitol building in Austin, had gained access to the stream provided by state-controlled cameras there and set up a live YouTube channel for the legislative session.

While the same stream was also accessible through the Senate’s own Web site, that site looked almost comically old-fashioned compared with YouTube. Thus it was through YouTube that Ms. Davis’s filibuster was widely seen and shared.

More than 100,000 viewers were reported viewing the stream.

https://twitter.com/stephparker/status/349737590955573248

The great lesson from this episode? You can’t hide anything. We’ve talked about the power of YouTube before, when we looked at Governor Romney’s so-called 47% gaffe, but this is different for the streaming aspect of it. As we keep learning, that which we used to be hold back from the public, that which we used to depend on the mass media to repackage, that which we used to be able to delay and explain away, is now available live and in streaming color to hundreds of thousands of people around the globe.

You cannot hide anything. Now that we’ve established that, what do we do with that information? The best crisis communications consultants out there will tell you that if something bad is going to come out, you’re best to put it out soon and do it on your own terms. The corollary to not being able to hide anything is that you no longer can have any secrets. If it’s going to come out, put it out. If you’d rather not let the world know about something, stop doing it.

So, it’s hot. Out west, back east, feels like everywhere. For those of us in public health and emergency services, heat is a big deal as it’s estimated that more than 650 people die heat-related deaths every year. And with weather experts believing these types of events will happen more often, this is something we should be preparing for.

And lots of forward-leaning health departments are out there messaging away on social media:

https://twitter.com/Maricopahealth/status/349997749632122880

https://twitter.com/SNHDinfo/status/351745996360908800

They’re doing a great job adapting traditional risk communication messaging to social media and doing it in a timely manner and using appropriate means. Kudos, really. But, do either of those tweets inspire you? Not the public health you, but the normal-person-with-fifty-things-to-do you. Probably not. They’re the right messages, they’re good risk communication, but in today’s media saturated world, is that enough anymore?

I don’t think so, so given that it’s a holiday, I’m taking some liberties with the blog and am going to post on what my heat warning messaging looked like last year. I had a ton of fun with it and picked up a chunk of new followers. I like to think it was an attempt to step outside of our traditional, staid, risk communication messaging; certainly not best practice.

On June 20th and 22nd, I went on what I called PhillyHeatWalks. I rolled up my sleeves, loosened my tie, grabbed a bottle of water and headed out to take pictures of hot people. (Literally hot people, I made no distinctions about their physical attractiveness.) Here’s the first set, here’s the second. I was looking for people at famous Philadelphia spots, doing their best to stay cool during 90+ degree temperatures. Kids in fountains, folks with umbrellas, stacks of ice-cold water bottles, empty parks. I wanted to make our recommendations more than just a fact sheet. I wanted to bring it into reality. Show people doing those things we talk about. I don’t know how successful it was, but I’m going to do it again.

But it’s not just me doing cool things on social media trying to spread the word about being safe in the heat. In fact, yesterday, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment did something I’d never seen before: a Twitterchat on the heat!

https://twitter.com/KDHE/status/352471859813548033

Now this is, or should be, a best practice. Any time there’s an event that is generating public interest, we should be ready to discuss it openly and frankly with the public. Give us a chance to give our approved risk communication messages to the interested public. I might follow their lead during our next Excessive Heat Warning!

Finally, the following is a video by a veterinarian who is trying to get folks to understand why you shouldn’t leave pets in the car during heat events. Normally, those types of videos would include a talking head and some facts about how much the temperature in a car can rise in so many minutes. Dr. Ward, though, wants to show you. And the effect is powerful. Certainly more powerful than our bland fact sheets.

The digital divide is a scary idea. It is the idea that as information moves away from offline and toward online, those who don’t have access to those online channels lose access to that information. Lose access to services. Lose access.

The people who would be most negatively affected by a digital divide are those who need that access the most. The poor, minorities, the elderly, the traditionally underserved. (Also note, I’m only talking about in the States now; I have no background in developing countries.) So we should make sure to ensure access and information is in as many places as possible, which is a good thing! Increasing access to online information is another good thing, and programs like Philly KEYSPOT are great ways to do it.

But I believe that dichotomy (online vs. offline) is a great oversimplification of the problem. There is a digital divide and research bears it out. Minorities, the poor and the elderly do not access the internet at home as much as other demographic groups. Broadband access is but a small percentage of what whites get. But, as I’ve said before, minority groups still use social media, and the fastest growing demographic groups access social media are the elderly and poor. So where is the disconnect? Is there a divide, or not?

Well, like all good public health answers, it depends on how you ask the question. If you ask about going online at home, on a desktop or laptop computer, using a non-dial-up service, there is a divide. Because computers and broadband access are expensive! But when you ask if people get online, there is less of a divide. And the reason why is probably sitting on your desk, in your pocket or in your purse right now: smartphones.

[U]sage of smartphones as a primary internet access device is highest among several groups with relatively low rates of traditional internet and broadband adoption—for example, those with no college experience as well as those with relatively low income levels.

One of my favorite health thinkers, Raed Mansour, recently posted on this dichotomy, and opined that many in public health view our lack of reaching traditionally underserved populations as a technology problem. That we spend too much time focusing on using the latest and greatest. Raed shoots back, saying:

[W]hat we really have is a public health problem and not a technology/data problem.

We should never rely on only one communication tool to solve our problems. We also shouldn’t avoid a tool that is so commonly used in our vulnerable populations and by their influencers.

Too often public health communicators, focused on providing information to traditionally underserved populations shun digital outreach because of an increasingly outdated view of how people access digital resources. There will always be a place for boots-on-the-ground outreach and offline communications, but to ignore the fastest growing communications pipeline because of a non-evidence based technophobia is doing a disservice to folks who continue to get the short end of the stick.