SocialButterfly.

According to a January 2008 study titled How America Searches, Health and Wellness:

• In the past 12 months, 59% of adults reference the internet to find or access health and wellness information.
• 67% of adult searchers use general search engines as an online tool or resource for health information and only 7% referred to online drug advertisements.
• 36% of adult searchers use online health information to see what other consumers say about a medication or treatment

Because of statistics like those above, the concept of ‘Health 2.0′ has increased its usage and importance. Simply, Health 2.0 = the merging of social media into healthcare. However, others see the movement of Health 2.0 as something much wider and farther reaching. Even Google image searching shows a variety of more complex definitions. I’d be interested to see how you all define it for yourselves or for your practice.

Examples of Health 2.0

Websites

• Carol.com , started in 2006, is the marketplace for care, allowing hospitals and providers to ‘bid’ for consumers’ care
• Vitals.com, allows patients to review their current doctor’s or a potential doctor’s reviews and ratings
• DoubleCheckMD, allows consumers to check for potential drug interactions quickly and easily
• American Well , creates a healthcare marketplace where consumers and physicians come together online to acquire and provide convenient and immediate healthcare services

Wikis

• Wikipedia
• FluWiki
• WiserWiki, a medical and healthcare information wiki edited exclusively by physicians
• Clinfo Wiki, a wiki devoted to clinical informatics
• Ask Dr. Wiki, allows those with a medical background to publish review articles, clinical notes, pearls and/or medical images to the wiki. The main focus has been on Cardiology and Electrophysiology, but they have expanded to other areas.

Blogs

• DiabetesMine, a blog all about diabetes
• HealthMatters (Healthline), a collection of weblogs by professionals, covering different aspects of health, wellness, treatments, and recent advances
• WebMD, provides health and health-related information

Social Networks

• OrganizedWisdom, the first human-powered search service for health information
• PatientsLikeMe, find patients who are receiving the same or similar treatments
• DailyStrength, helps one find support groups
• Sermo, a community for physicians to share information, questions and observations amongst themselves, encouraging collaboration
• ReliefinSite, helps with pain managemnt
• NursesRecommendDoctors
• TheHealthCareScoop

Video-Sharing

• ICYou, the source of healthcare videos and videos related to health information
• Cleveland Clinic on Google Video
• TauMed, a virtual health community where one can search and share information on a variety of health topics

Online Forums

• Revolution Health Groups
• Google Health Groups, find support and community groups
• iVillage

Podcasts

• Johns Hopkins Medical Podcasts
• NIH Podcasts
• NY Times Health Pocasts
• CDC Travelers Health
• dLife podcasts for diabetes, information and inspiration for those with diabetes

Caution

Health 2.0 researchers warn that patients should be cautious about posting personal health-related information through unsecured social media as health insurance providers could gain access to this information, as well as potential employers.

Future

Social Media combined with health information, patients and user-generated content can be used for:

• User-generated health ratings for hospitals and doctors
• Bridge the gap between doctor and patient
• Bring communities together in new, innovative ways
• Establishing patients as opinion leaders
• Managing health and managing community health in new ways

For specific case studies and more information, view this report titled: The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media prepared for the California Healthcare Foundation by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn.

Questions to Ponder

• Is Health 2.0 helpful or harmful?
• Is the content trustrworthy? Does it matter? Will consumers take the information at face value?
• Why are patients labeled as consumers? What does this mean/say about how health 2.0 is being approached?
• What are the ethical concerns?
• What are the privacy concerns?

Can’t wait to read your insights in the comments. =)

Have some extra time but also want to engage the brain? Try Free Rice.

Play a simple word game and based on your success, rice will be donated to hungry children.

How It Works

A word appears and asks you to define it. Every definition you correctly identify donates 20 grains of rice. You’re intriguing the mind, using social media tools AND giving. Talk about collaborative innovation.

There are 55 different vocabulary levels, with customized options for your own vocabulary growth…the site says that most people don’t get beyond level 48. Will you be the one to reach level 55?!?

The words are also constantly evaluated on their difficulty level depending on how many people get the word right or wrong and new words are always being added.

Why

Free Rice also lists many reasons why its encourages the development of vocabulary as part of its mission in its FAQ section of its website. They include:

• Formulate your ideas better
• Write better papers, emails and business letters
• Speak more precisely and persuasively
• Comprehend more of what you read
• Read faster because you comprehend better
• Get better grades in high school, college and graduate school
• Score higher on tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and GMAT
• Perform better at job interviews and conferences
• Sell yourself, your services, and your products better
• Be more effective and successful at your job

Who Finances The Donation?

According to the site, the site’s advertisers are the ones who actually pay for the rice to be donated. And, the site itself does not run a profit. Thus, you play, advertisers pay to be listed on the site, that money funds the rice donation.

Distribution

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) distributes the rice. The WFP works with over 1,000 organizations in over 75 countries, making it the world’s largest food aid agency. When possible, WFP buys the food through the local growers and economy.

Results

From its start on October 7, 2007 to April 27, 2008, the total number of rice grains donated = 29,724,130,370! For a break down of results, click here.

More

To learn more about hunger, visit Poverty.com, an interactive site that teaches about hunger and poverty, and even tracks how many hunger deaths occur per hour through a moving, interactive map…

Other Helpful Sites include:

At this past week’s International Advertising Association’s World Congress in Washington D.C, the Ad Council and IAA revealed results from the Ad Council IAA Member Survey on Social Advertising Programs. For all social marketers out there, the results are on our side.

Among the Key Findings, the following figures were given in support of social marketing:

• 57% of respondents felt their country should implement MORE social marketing campaigns than it currently has.
• 61% said their country NEEDS HELP developing social marketing campaigns.
• 90% of respondents expressed interest in sharing and learning MORE about research and creative materials for social marketing campaigns in other countries.

As I was in attendance during this conference, you can imagine how STOKED I was about this. I had to pinch myself. Here I was at the IAA World Congress, and did I hear right:  We are talking about social marketing. The real social marketing. Not social media. I could barely contain myself. Then, it happens again, and then again. And then I realize, the IAA is trying to educate and send a message to the ad community: invest in social marketing!

But where were we social marketers? our experts in the field? our voice? Absent. Here was a chance to share our passion, knowledge, excitement and message with the very industry that we can work with….and we weren’t there. So, here is my message for this post. Social marketing is great and wonderful. But we can’t stay in our bubble. We’ve reached out to the non-profit community, but all advertisers aren’t bad. There are big movers and shakers who want to do good and see the value in doing goog. We need to integrate ourselves with them….not be divisive.

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These results were shared with the Advertising industry during the IAA presentation for the 1st Social Responsibility advertising awards. These awards were presented with cooperation between IAA and ACT Responsible. The Grand Prix winner was “Signature” for Amnesty International by TBWA/Paris. To see the rest of the recipients, go here.

(This was a web-based survey through Zoomerang among IAA members from December 13, 2007 to February 11, 2008. 204 completed surveys were received from member respondents in six continents. Respondents included respondents from advertisers, ad agencies, media outlets, research companies, trade associations and universities.)

Today, on SocialBttrfly’s Twitter feed, womenshealth tweeted the following statistic:

“Hookah smoke has as much

or more nicotine and tar as

many filtered cigarettes.”

Hookah has recently been in the news due to health warnings concerning hookah users and their vulnerability to contracting herpes. A March 18, 2008 article from Colorado State University describes an incident where two students are believed to have contracted oral herpes from hookah activities due to the swapping of saliva that occurs.

However, other health effects are possible. Until I received the above tweet, I was unaware on the dangers of hookah. I have personally never done hookah nor really care to, but I know it is an increasing trend on many college campuses. A March 5, 2008 article in The Daily Orange describes this trend more:

“The sociality of hookah is also evidenced on a national level, with hookah bars beginning to open up in major cities as it becomes a trendy activity among teenagers and 20-somethings. “

Apparently, I am not the only one who is less informed about the health consequences of Hookah. According to a study conducted by the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH), 79% of hookah smokers believe the flavored tobacco is safer than cigarettes. Type ‘hookah’ in Google news and evidence that  the topic is increasing its prominence on the public agenda appears ten-fold.

So my next thought was:  Are there any social marketing initiatives or PSAs that currently address this issue?

The only PSA I could find was this one on Youtube. The source I have yet to identify.

If you know of more hookah PSAs or social marketing campaigns, please let me know.

For more information on the effects of smoking Hookah, visit CDC’s online factsheet or Womenshealth.gov’s informational description for more information.
____________

Yes, I did say this issue was brought to me in a tweet on Twitter by womenshealth, as in womenshealth.gov. For more information regarding the use of Twitter by non-profits, causes and government agencies, Nedra Weinreich of the social marketing blog, Spare Change, wrote an incredible post on this topic that I know you’ll find helpful.

In an earlier post, I clarified how social marketing differentiates itself from social media marketing. Now, I am asking for your thoughts on how the term social marketing relates to the term social change marketing.

Social marketing, as we’ve discussed, has decades of theoretical history and practice. It is a term constantly evolving and defining itself. However, the field also faces a challenge: branding itself…especially since the onset of social media marketing.

Reading through social marketing texts and journals, the terms - social change, marketing for social change, and social change marketing are making increasing appearances, so I am curious on others’ thought about how the two terms relate.

A good summary of the two concepts, including how they relate to commercial marketing, is found in Dr. Stephen Dann’s slideshow titled:

“Social change marketing in the age of direct benefit marketing – where to from here?”

In this presentation, Dann asks the question: Where to from here? which provides information on how social marketing has grown and compares to commercial marketing and what this may mean for the future. Other signs of the concept of social change’s relationship to social marketing dates back to Prof. Alan Andreason’s book: Marketing Social Change. So, there is a history. On the web, Craig Lefebvre’s blog is titled On Social Marketing and Social Change, suggesting the relationship.

Thus, I am curious on your thoughts about the terms/concepts of social marketing versus social change marketing:

• Can social marketing be renamed social change marketing?
• Or, is social marketing one component of social change?
• Or, is social marketing one piece of social change marketing? What’s the difference? Is there a difference?

It may seem like a matter of scrabble to some, but these discussions really engage me, and I hope the enthusiasm sparks interest as I think the relationship between the two terms is continuing to develop and will becoming increasingly important as we work to brand social marketing. =)