On Thursday, August 14, representatives of early adopter schools of the ASPH Communications Toolkit met in Atlanta, GA to evaluate activities to date and to plan for next steps in the national initiative to brand public health and schools of public health. The early adopters program was designed to pilot how all of the accredited schools of public health can adopt a national messaging strategy, which is being developed in conjunction with ASPH’s partners at SS+K. 

Attending the meeting were Ms. Sarah Anderson (UCLA), Mr. Richard Bennett (Alabama), Ms. Ellen de Graffenreid (Louisville), Mr. Wayne Dietterick (UMDNJ), Dean Audrey Gotsch (UMDNJ), Mr. Tony Hartsfield (Kentucky),  Ms. Robin Herman (Harvard), Ms. Cheryl Johnson (Alabama), MR. Daniel McMillan (Iowa), Ms. Terri Mellow (Michigan), Ms. Rae Lynn Mitchell (Texas A&M), Ms. Christine O’Malley (Ohio), Ms. Deb Oriola (Albany), Ms. Laura Post (Tulane), Ms. Mayra Santiago-Vargas (Puerto Rico), Ms. Shannon Shelton (Emory),  Ms. Diane Wynn (North Texas) and Ms. Lorraine Varela (Arizona).

Throughout the all day meeting, representatives discussed their use of the communications toolkit, ideas for a national roll out of an ASPH national communications strategy, the results of the 2008 "This is Public Health" campaign, student recruitment strategies and collaborations with other national organizations. 

At one of the meeting's sessions, ASPH and SS+K staff presented progress on "This is Public Health" campaign.  The "This is Public Health Sticker" effort has been extremely successful. Over 40,000 stickers have been sent to 35 states around the country. Last week, ASPH posted the "This is Public Health" Toolkit as an additional resource for participants, which can be viewed at www.thisispublichealth.org/toolkit.  

Results of SPH experiences with the communications toolkit and the "This is Public Health" campaign  will be shared with committees and councils at the ASPH annual meeting including examples of lessons learned, best practices and sharable materials.  

Please contact Ms. Laura Biesiadecki at lbiesiadecki@asph.org for more information or to share materials.