This is from the Introduction to Public Health graduate course at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. The focus of the presentation was to provide an overview of ways to consider social media and it's role in supporting public health.

1. Here Be Dragons
Public Health Communication in the Age of Social Media
Cameron D. Norman PhD MDes CE
CENSE Research + Design
Dalla Lana School of Public Health

2. In 1497 Vasco de Gama left Portugal with a 160-man
crew for the Cape of Good Hope
…100 of those men died of scurvy

3. Capt. James Lancaster sailed from England to India in 1601 and conducted
one of the earliest randomized trials of using citrus juice to control scurvy
Results?
Halfway,100 of 278 sailors (40%) died of scurvy on the control ships
0 died on the experimental ship

4. Captain James Cook sailed around the Cape of Great Hope
3 times from 1768 - 1780 losing no men to scurvy

5. “To introduce any new article of food among seamen, let it ever so much be for
their good, requires both examples and the authority of a commander”
- Captain James Cook

6. Social Media
Social media is any networked ICT tool or platform that
derives its principal value from user engagement
(Norman, 2012)

7. Social Media Revolution
• No centre of control
• Institution > person is now also:
• person to person, people to
people, institution > institution,
person > institution etc..
• Mobile
• Real time
• Visual
• Conversation
• Dynamic

8. The most important factor in controlling epidemics
isn’t the quality of our medicine. It’s the quality of our
information.

9. • Maryn McKenna – Wired Online 13/08/21
The solution [to preventing pandemic
outbreaks] lies in something public health has
failed to accomplish despite centuries of trying:
persuading governments that transparency
needs to trump concerns about their own
reputations.
Information can outrun our deadly new
diseases, but only if it’s allowed to spread.

10. Become a Designer
Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at
changing existing situations into preferred ones.
- Herb Simon

11. E + Health Literacy

12. Connecting & Community

13. Attention & Focus

14. Leadership

16. Teamwork

18. Adaptive Strength

19. Lister, C., Royne, M., Payne, H. E., Cannon, B., Hanson, C., & Barnes, M.
(2015). The Laugh Model: Reframing and Rebranding Public Health
Through Social Media. American Journal of Public Health, 105(11), 2245–
2251.

21. Direction

22. Maloney, S., Tunnecliff, J., Morgan, P., Gaida, J. E., Clearihan, L.,
Sadasivan, S., et al. (2015). Translating Evidence Into Practice via Social
Media: A Mixed-Methods Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research,
17(10), e242–10.

23. Channels

24. Armstrong, S. (2015). Which app should I use? BMJ, 351, h4597–3.