Last week, we attended the Office of Minority Health’s (OMH) Third National Leadership Summit on Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health, this year’s largest gathering of public health professionals working to reduce health disparities. We were thrilled that OMH leadership dedicated three sessions to technology and new media! These sessions highlighted the need for information on new media, the use of new media by communities of color, and how to incorporate new media into communication planning.

• HIV.gov offered a pre-summit workshop, “Using New Media and Communities of Color.” The workshop emphasized the importance of planning your new media strategy, and was based on information from NTEN’s We Are MediaExit Disclaimer two–day training. Participants represented diverse public health interests, including AIDS, cancer, family planning, and occupational health, and they came from as far away as American Samoa. They reflected what we have found to be true among many HIV providers—some were just learning the basics of new media, while others were already implementing new media strategies and were able to share their experiences and lessons learned. Many of these participants highlighted great examples of new media use. (To view our slides on slideshare from our presentation, click hereExit Disclaimer)
• Miguel Gomez, Director of HIV.gov, participated in a panel on “Innovative Media Strategies for Addressing Inequalities in Health” with Rachel Poulain of the PBS series, Unnatural CausesExit Disclaimer, and Candace Muggerud from the GoodHealthTVExit Disclaimer web-based tool for Native Americans. View his slides on SlideshareExit Disclaimer or in last week’s post.
• OMH’s Miryam Granthon facilitated a session on “Opportunities for HIT (Health information and Technology) and Underserved Communities” that distilled President Obama’s vision to computerize health records in the next five years.

The turnout for these presentations exceeded our expectations. It was encouraging to see so many people interested in using new media to reach communities of color. We look forward to continuing the dialogue and learning from our colleagues. We have an obligation to help our colleagues understand new media because, as the statistics show, Americans at risk for HIV and other diseases are using online information to help them make decisions about their health and their behaviors.

Do you know of any upcoming new media training opportunities that might interest our readers? Please let us know!