Author: Prasantha De Silva
Lessons from Montreal Protocol to Upstream Public Health Community
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases through these links at no extra cost to you. The Montreal Protocol (#MontrealProtocol) is an upstream intervention #ClimateAction classic. It is a powerful climate treaty. It directly impacted global public health. The Protocol’s 35-year-long legendary journey…
An interactive global tobacco control progress hub
On November 30, 2022, Action on Smoking and Health Canada unveiled the interactive global tobacco control progress hub. It is a very useful data visualization dashboard housed on the Tableau Public platform. This dashboard summarises all progress indicators of two global anti-tobacco campaigns: The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control…
Social norms based messages to reduce high-risk drinking
In 1989, Northern Illinois University wanted to reduce students’ high-risk (binge) drinking behaviour. At the time, the university housed 23,000 students. Its researchers adopted the social norms theory to craft messages for their social marketing campaign. This post discusses their steps. The contents of this post are from Michael Haines’s…
How to create an asset map with Google My Maps
A previous post discussed how community asset mapping benefits to health promoters. This post describes how I created a visual asset map using the freely available Google My Maps tool. In this project, I chose stroke survivors and their caregivers as my target audience. It was because of a project…
Community asset mapping
Asset mapping strategy brings many benefits to health promoters, resource and patient care navigators. It helps us, Of course, it helps us to identify gaps also. All in all, the strategy helps us to visualize a more realistic picture of our community. In fact, asset mapping should be an integral…
How to use the prospect theory to frame messages
We respond differently to the same facts depending on whether it presents either as a gain or a loss; that is what the Prospect Theory says. We go for the sure gain even if it is perceived as smaller than the much more significant unsure gain. But, we go for…
How to deal with COVID19 vaccine hesitancy
COVID 19 vaccine hesitancy is real. It hurts. With Omicron, vaccine hesitancy has become a major roadblock. The problem has gone viral very much like the COVID19 spread. What is COVID 19 vaccine hesitancy? Vaccine hesitancy refers to situations when someone either refuses or delay getting the CVODI19 vaccines. Vaccine…
The third dose may prevent your hospital admission
A group of Isreal researchers have documented hospital admissions due to COVID-19. They have compared the patients’ vaccine status and found that majority did not have the third dose. Following is the graph from their research paper published on The Lancet, October 29, 2021. Following is the link to the…
COVID-19 can be airborne – Reframe your messages
Evidence is growing that COVID-19 can transmit through the air. Need evidence? Julian W Tang et al.’s BMJ article dissects the evidence. Furthermore, governments are changing their health education messages accordingly. In this video clip, the Canadian government are now promoting adequate ventilation as a method of reducing transmission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZjTT4nrWu4&t=24s
Health inequalities and upstream public health
The upstream-downstream metaphor helps public health practitioners to choose cost-effective public health interventions. This post curate peer-reviewed articles of which the main focus is the upstream-downstream” metaphor. 1. The upstream versus downstream metaphor to reduce health inequalities In this article Naoimh, E. McMahon reviews literature published until June 2020 to…
