Campaign/PPT

Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH1

PUBLIC HEALTH

Public Health

Amanda Vallera

Arizona State University

Drugs, as discussed earlier, have been our primary topic of discussion. The drug requires a health campaign as it has brought about significant effects in each country, and it is even bringing a substantial drain to the economy of the states and the world at large. Drugs have also brought the loss of many people who the world would need for better improvement or major governorship. Because of this reason, drugs need to be dealt with and, most of all, done away thing. The same drugs are the reason why so many mental hospitals are getting full within years; the rate at which the mentally disturbed are being admitted is increasing daily, (Witte &Allen,2000). The rehabilitation centers put around the world are willing to help all those people who are having issues with drug addiction and are enthusiastic in helping those who have to deal with drug addict problems and are unable to stop.

Statistics and research have shown that this is a problem affecting the youth. Statistics have also explained that the most abused drug by the child is alcohol. More than 70% of the drug addicts have shown that it is the youth, and their major addict is alcohol. At times these young people find themselves abusing other drugs as they are under the influence of alcohol. Alcohol tends to switch people's brains, and they tend not to think straight. People under the influence of liquor act like mentally ill people, and even in courts, any illegal action they take while in that condition is taken as that of a mad person; this explains how dangerous alcohol and how badly it can damage anyone's brain and his or her thinking capacity,(Witte & Allen, 2000). It has been noted that the majority of the youths affected by drug addiction are those who abuse drugs are aged 13-24. This shows that the most affected age group is teens. This is students in high schools, colleges, and universities. Drugs have affected them even in their studies because they are unable to concentrate on their work, and when it comes to those in colleges and universities, most of them do not also attend the lectures.

Since the target audience is based on the youths, the youths are people who are much digitalized and modernized, and this would mean that the words used or the language used should be the language used primarily by the children for them not to get bored with the campaign. This also should mean that the campaign should be accompanied by music. For the message to be relayed on the youths, it should be done through music, (Mangione-Smith, Elliott, Stivers, McDonald, Heritage &McGlynn, 2004). This is because young people are so obsessed with music and love listening to music even in their own free time. If the message is written down as a song, it would surely help them realize how drugs can affect them. The information should be relayed in a better way because the youths are people who hate being criticized, and if anyone wants to make them understand, he or she should talk as if he follows them to make them get that closure.

For this campaign to be a success, there must be expected objectives, and we believe that after carrying out this campaign, we believe that the following changes will have taken place. That after this campaign, the number of students abusing drugs will lower at least by 20%. It is also our aim that the population of those people in the rehabilitation centers will increase as youths will visit those people seeking help for them to withdraw from the use of drugs altogether. Since change is a gradual process, we believe that after this campaign, changes will begin to be seen in these youths by looking at their performances in school as they will now make time for their studies, (Green & Witte, 2006). The best channel of communication should be used to achieve these objectives, and in this case, the best channel or medium of communication would be through mass media. This depends on the target audience, who are the youths, and they love all the social media platforms. This would be the best way to ensure that the message reaches them. The letter should also be straightforward, addressing the issues of drug abuse by youths.

As said earlier, the best communication channel would be the use of mass media. This is because the target audiences, who are the youths, are mostly online, and they love the use of os social media. However, this is the same platform that makes it possible for access to those drugs. It is seen that most of the youth’s abuse drugs out of peer influence. Their communication has enabled the use of these same platforms as those who abuse these drugs to advertise them here and show their "cool" lifestyle as they call it under the influence of drugs. The communication should be mainly insisted on the weekends as this is the time most of them are free and get to use this platform mostly. It is the same period when students organize parties where thy use these drugs together. Keeping them busy with these messages would help them avoid such parties and educate them.

The campaign materials should be very appealing to the eye, and they should consider all the aspects required by the youths as described above. Campaign materials like music videos should be used in delivering the message, (Kaler, 2009). This is because adolescents love things like music or videos, and therefore such campaign materials would help. To add to this, the campaign materials to be used need to make sense, they should be understandable by all those who read, watch, or listen to them. They should be easy to interpret, but most of all they should be entertaining as young people love watching, reading or listening to things that make them feel entertained.

As we conclude this, it should be noted that it is everyone's aim before venturing into something that will be a success. In this case, it is the hope of those campaigning that their campaign would be a success, and this would only happen if their aims and objectives are achieved. Their main goal is to fight against the drug abuse amongst the youths. This would be achieved if the cases listed of drug abuse would lower at a specific rate and that the lives of the young people would be seen to improve as they are tomorrow's leaders.

References

Witte, K., & Allen, M. (2000). A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for effective public health campaigns. Health education & behavior, 27(5), 591-615.

Mangione-Smith, R., Elliott, M. N., Stivers, T., McDonald, L., Heritage, J., &McGlynn, E. A. (2004). Racial/ethnic variation in parent expectations for antibiotics: implications for public health campaigns. Pediatrics, 113(5), e385-e394.

Green, E. C., & Witte, K. (2006). Can fear arousal in public health campaigns contributes to the decline of HIV prevalence?. Journal of health communication, 11(3), 245-259.

Cho, H., & Salmon, C. T. (2006). Fear appeals for individuals in different stages of change: Intended and unintended effects and implications on public health campaigns. Health communication, 20(1), 91-99.

Kaler, A. (2009). Health interventions and the persistence of rumor: the circulation of sterility stories in African public health campaigns. Social science & medicine, 68(9), 1711-1719.

Walls, H. L., Peeters, A., Proietto, J., & McNeil, J. J. (2011). Public health campaigns and obesity-a critique. BMC public health, 11(1), 136.

Lupton, D. (2015). The pedagogy of disgust: the ethical, moral, and political implications of using disgust in public health campaigns. Critical public health, 25(1), 4-14.