Students staving off sickness

It's flu season, and many students far away from home don't have their mothers around to tell them to cover their coughs and clean their hands. Instead, the health center's marketing peer program has taken up the crusade against disease.

The Health Advertising, Marketing Peer Program, a semester-old group comprised of eight students responsible for marketing health-center initiatives, is responsible for the advertisements that litter campus reminding students to "cover your cough, clean your hands." The group has been responsible for this semester's flu-prevention campaign, promotions of the mid-October flu drill, Suicide Awareness Week, World AIDS Week and this week's National Hand Washing activities.

Advertising and Marketing Peer Program Coordinator Julia Matute said National Hand Washing Week is the group's most recent venture in an ongoing effort to encourage students to take responsibility for their role in flu prevention.

"Signs will be posted on the Washington quad to target some of our upper classmen who live in that vicinity," Matute said.

Originally, the pilot program was developed in line with the University Health Center's recent emphasis on public health, Assistant Director to Health Promotions Kelly Kesler said.

The group has facilitated the University Health Center's ability to reach out to the campus community. Students involved said doing so helped them to gain invaluable advertising and marketing experience.

"We worked on social marketing exercises that took the students [in the group] through the process step-by-step. Our end result is National Hand Washing Week being promoted through a Facebook event page," Matute said. "When students go to that event page, they can take an online quiz/poll to test their hand-washing knowledge and become more aware about hand-washing habits."

The group meets weekly at the health center to discuss current projects and upcoming campaigns, Matute said. Peers will sometimes break into smaller groups to learn about something new that's health related, but she said the most interesting activity thus far has been SpotLight Presentations. In these presentations, students educate each other on an issue, which allows them to practice their ability to communicate complicated topics, like those often associated with health.

"Students are required to give 15-minute presentations on just about anything, but they must relate the topic to marketing," Matute said. "We have learned so much from each other."

After advertising around campus for a semester, group members have also learned from their own experiences.

Promotions for National Hand Washing Week, for example, will be posted around Washington quad, because that area has lacked attention from the group in the past.

"The group identified that our activities didn't always address that population or community," Matute said. "Outreach is also being made to the academic departments to promote the posting of our hand-washing and cover-your-cough posters."

"[The group] expanded the reach of health messages and services across campus," Matute said. "Also, most importantly, the potential impact on health behavior changing or increasing health awareness occurs to some degree."

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