Wildland Fire with Area Ignition

Fire From the Sky

Last Sunday as I flew back from Chicago to San Diego, I noticed the fires burning from high above the sky. Little did I know what a huge impact those fires would have on thousands of lives in San Diego County. I want to say that the fires didn't affect me, but in actuality it did. It affected my school, work, and lastly it affected the lives of my friends and family who evacuated their homes. It is unfortunate that this event took place, especially in San Diego, such a beautiful city; leaving so many people homeless and nowhere to go. As San Diego moves forward to rebuild, public health will play a huge part in the promotion of the community's health; whether it be through environmental promotion, epidemiological studies, and health campaigns to promote healthy communities within the cities that have been devastated by the fires. You normally want to refer to monumental events as something positive, but the San Diego fires are truly a monumental event because it's affected the lives of so many people and will cost so much in time, money, and effort, but like the fires of 2003, I know that San Diego will recover, rebuild, and can overcome the tragedies that have taken place.

Read more about the health effects from smoke inhalation due to the Southern CA fires. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/10/23/gupta.smoke.inhalation.cnn

Entertainment - Public Health Summit

The Population Media Center (PMC) is an organization that helps to improve the health and well being of people around the world through the use of entertainment and education strategies, while promoting healthy lifestyles. Headquartered in Shelburne, VT, the organization recently collaborated with various public health institutions such as the Rollins School of Public Health, CDC, and Harvard University to host the Entertainment Public Health Summit in Atlanta, Georgia promoting public health within the media. The summit explored how mass media entertainment is essential to behavior change on a mass scale, communicating to children about improving social and health outcomes by empowering them to participating in creating entertainment health models, focusing on special markets that accounts for cultural qualities in minority audiences, and delved into new challenges of health communication.

The main goal of the Population Media Center is to collaborate with the media on a global scale in an effort to educate people about encouraging effective family planning methods, women's health status towards the promotion of gender equality, and educating the public about the benefits of small families. This organization is a perfect example of how to incorporate the media, messages, and positioning itself to reach the public in an efficient and effective way. By successfully combining their efforts with well known public health institutions, it provides a level of validity regarding their health promotion strategies and messages. Hopefully, their messages can also provide an easier sense of health literacy since the agency works directly with producers and writers to create entertainment programs that help incorporate health issues based on formative research findings resulting in country specific and culturally sensitive formats.

Ronald McDonald Gets Supersized

Wow...I'm sure if McDonalds advertised this ad people would think twice about supersizing or even eating at McDonalds at all. Looks like Ronald needs to pass on the Big Macs and ask for a supersized salad.

America's Next Top Model Tries to Also Become a Role Model for Teens

America's Next Top Model has become a huge success going into the 9th season on the CW Network. Due to it's popularity, host Tyra Banks, has acknowledged the show's main viewers are teenage girls, who may also have a dream of becoming a model just like here current contestants. In an effort to show her support and set good role models for the teen viewers, Tyra announced to the 13 potential models that smoking will no longer be permitted during the entire taping of the show. During the first elimination episode last week she advised the girls that many teenage girls watch the show and will immitate a lot of what they see on the show in order to look better, lose weight, and dress a certain way. In the previous episodes, many of the former contestants also smoked and was very visible to the camera, Tyra now hopes to reduce that habit with this season's contestants. Therefore, she gave the girls one last night to smoke their cigarettes, but the next day it was to be banned from the show.
After hearing Tyra's new rules for the house I was really impressed how she wants her viewers to also be positively affected by the show. Many girls do watch the show and seeing young women smoking can send a message to them saying it's okay to smoke because you're a model or that you're on TV. I commend Tyra's support to improve the health of her contestants and her viewers. This is a great example of how the media can provide positive health communication to the public at large.