Cultivating a ‘design’ culture in health promotion

This post is inspired by the Danish Design Centre’s Exhibition in Copenhagen 2009 called “It’s a small world”.

“Design is not just about making things, but rather how we make things that fit harmoniously into an ecological, cultural, and moral context. It is therefore about systems, patterns, and connections.

David Orr, ‘Architecture, Ecological Design, and Human Ecology’

In health communication & social media, especially targeting young people, a fundamental requirement of health professionals, is a way of seeing, understanding and acting in order to design solutions that improve life. Therefore designing health communication is ultimately about creating meaning around the subject.

The role of health communication is to create meaning around a health issue. It is not a welfare service, but a focus on human life, human experience and human emotions. The current methods that are applied in health communications is focused on information dissemination and increasing awareness, where both  practices, I believe, are not sustainable. Buckets of money is spent on mass media advertisements,  billboards and  posters are placed in strategic locations for a short period of time (>6 <12 months), along with the thousands of leaflets, t-shirts, caps, etc., that unfortunately continue to fail us in terms of social marketing branding and in addition,  litter our planet and have a questionable impact on behaviour change.

Social media however provides a place to experiment and receive feedback at a more sustainable level. Traffic to the site is based on how well the program is designed and format of health communication material can be in audio, video, or blog and can be further consolidated through peer to peer recommendation via social networking sites. Consumers today are know to trust peer to peer recomendations as apposed to advertisements (>70%).

The debate on sustainability includes the impact we have on the environment by printing more and more paper based material that eventually do not get recycled. Most agencies whether government or non government rarely used recycled paper!

I admit that all I can do in this forum is to encourage us to embrace sustainable health communications and develop sustainable design but I have not yet defined exactly HOW.

#TOP 4 social media and health communications recommendation:

1. We have moved from large population based programs to ‘target group’ focused programs. Now let’s break down the target groups further. A few smaller projects can be more effective than a large scale project with large scale resource needed for evaluation.
2. New craftsmanship in designing health communications requires new tools along classic tools. Contemporary design is characterized by digital tools. This is where social media comes into play.
3. Non standardized praxis is about developing new mindsets in society about health issues that is saturated with standardized health communications,  that have also proven somewhat effective but not sustainable. Advanced technology enables new production methods, the possibility of increased specificity in individual/target group customization and the freedom to experiment.
4. The capability of the design program to stimulate and generate trends, customs and cultures needs to be acknowledged and efforts put to achieve this standard. Stop shoving everything into the ‘too hard’ basket, please. Thank you.