News about traffic safety often portrays the issue as a battle in which every road user must look out for him or herself. This characterization undermines equity and shared action. In this Framing Brief, we explore the nuances of the divisive frame and identify ways that traffic safety advocates can move the conversation toward community, cohesion and shared action for safety.
In this report, BMSG and InterEthnica analyzed news coverage of traffic safety in San Francisco to understand how the issue is framed and what the implications are for the city’s Vision Zero effort to eliminate traffic injuries and fatalities.
Understanding how school nutrition has been portrayed in the news is key for advocates working to build support around the country for policies that promote and maintain healthy school environments. This study, conducted in collaboration with the Public Health Advocacy Institute, provides a look at how discussions of school food nutrition policies unfolded in the selected states in the wake of a landmark national policy — the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
Food, beverage, restaurant and entertainment companies are increasingly harnessing Big Data to target consumers in retails settings, yet researchers do not know how their tactics influence diets and community health. To help close that knowledge gap, this memo reviews existing literature on food- and beverage-related digital marketing strategies and outlines recommendations for future research.
As the opioid epidemic worsens, it is critical to understand how the news is shaping people’s understanding of the issue and what can be done about it. In this report, supported by the California Public Health Department, we analyze news coverage from Northern California outlets, provide insights into how the issue is framed and suggest questions for additional research.
BMSG’s Lori Dorfman speaks at the 2016 UCLA-Harvard Food Law and Policy Conference: “Food Marketing to Children: The Current Reality and What Can Be Done.” As part of a panel discussion broadcast on C-SPAN, Dorfman discusses how food and beverage companies digitally target kids, the health and privacy concerns their tactics raise, and how we can help hold industry accountable.
In the summer of 2016, BMSG was honored to join the RYSE Center, along with a group of practitioners, researchers and community advocates in Richmond, California, to discuss the connections among racial oppression, white privilege, childhood trauma and health outcomes. This memo captures highlights from the group’s exploration of how racial justice can be positioned at the center of trauma-informed work.
One potential — but often overlooked — barrier to successful breastfeeding is the widespread marketing of infant formula. Infant formula marketers spend millions on direct-to-consumer advertising each year, exposing women to marketing in health care settings, retail stores, print ads and online. However, digital infant formula advertising is understudied and poorly understood. To help address this research gap, we’ve conducted a preliminary analysis of how infant formula is marketed through social media.
Historically, the infant formula industry has focused heavily on health care provider-directed marketing to reach new mothers. Now, it also seeks to engage women with an ever-expanding range of direct-to-consumer marketing tactics that include traditional marketing on television, coupons, elaborate websites, rewards programs, infant feeding advice hotlines, social media marketing and product packaging. This memo provides a preliminary overview of consumer protection policies that govern infant formula marketing and related self-regulation and international codes of conduct.
BMSG’s recent analysis of how soda tax debates are characterized in the news revealed that oral health professionals seldom appear. By elevating their expert voices, oral health practitioners can contribute new and salient arguments for soda taxes to the public discourse and help advance public policy that improves oral health outcomes. In this journal article for the California Dental Association, we propose media advocacy strategies that oral health professionals can use to increase their visibility in the news to make the case for soda taxes.
