How does the news portray the child welfare system? What failings are most visible in coverage? Is racial equity part of the conversation? To answer these and other key questions, BMSG is partnering with Resolve Philly as part of a larger project designed to support journalists in telling more complete stories about this important system.
In 2014, more people died of opioid overdose than any other year on record, and the epidemic is only getting worse. In rural communities in Northern California, the abuse of prescription drugs is particularly severe. Key to addressing and preventing the spread of this epidemic is understanding the news coverage of the issue. The California Department of Public Health commissioned BMSG to monitor and analyze print and online news from Northern California about the growing use of opioids.
In 1997, “The Woodhull Study on Nursing and the Media: Health Care’s Invisible Partner” documented the underrepresentation of nurses’ voices in media coverage of health issues. Twenty years later, are nurses better represented in health news?
In May 2001, the Labor Project for Working Families sought help for what was anticipated to be a long and arduous campaign to establish paid family leave in California. BMSG helped the organization develop a trained cadre of advocates around the state who would be able to speak effectively to journalists and at public hearings.
Green spaces are an important part of healthy neighborhoods, providing residents safe places to exercise, socialize, and enjoy the outdoors. However, because of racist and exclusionary practices, such as segregation and redlining, many communities lack them. In partnership with the Prevention Institute, BMSG is working to promote green space equity through the People, Parks, and Power National Funding Initiative (P3).
With support from the National Cancer Institute, the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern Law School collaborated with BMSG to conduct a sweeping review of arguments over who is responsible for causing, and remedying, two of the most serious public health crises in recent history: tobacco and obesity.
With our colleagues Jeff Chester at the Center for Digital Democracy, Kathryn Montgomery and Sonya Grier, both at American University, we examined how new digital marketing practices are fundamentally transforming how food and beverage companies do business with young people in the 21st century.
BMSG is proud to be a part of Public Health Awakened, a group of public health professionals organizing for health, equity, and justice. Public Health Awakened works with social justice movements on strategic and collective action to create a world in which everyone can thrive and to resist the threats facing communities of color and low-income communities.
In 1997, as part of a major initiative on children’s health, The California Endowment contracted with BMSG to compile a series of publications on how various children’s health issues are covered in the news media, and to use the findings in media advocacy trainings for children’s health advocates in California.
BMSG worked closely with the Strategic Alliance for Healthy Food and Activity Environments to use media advocacy to accelerate the coalition’s efforts to shift debate on nutrition and physical activity away from a primary focus on individual choice to one that includes corporate and government practices and the role of the environment in shaping eating and activity behaviors.
