The National Institutes of Health presented a two-day workshop in November 2009 on traditional and emerging approaches to creating behavior change, including communications strategies and the use of social marketing and social media, to encourage healthy behaviors reduce the incidence of heart disease and stroke.  This session of the annual meeting of the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention featured highlights from some of the key presentations from the workshop.

Marian Emr, Director of the Office of Communications and Public Liaison at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, provided an overview of the NIH workshop, including key findings and conclusions.

Susannah Fox presented the latest data on how people living with chronic disease use the internet. She also connected these findings to her observations about the promise of online patient networks in the face of the significant challenges facing public health workers across the U.S.

Robert J. Gould, PhD, President and CEO, Partnership for Prevention, Social Marketing and Policy Approaches to Prevention, presented his framework for evolving to a “social change.”

Jay Bernhardt, PhD, MPH, Division of E-Health Marketing National Center for Health Marketing, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, presented his department’s groundbreaking work in harnessing the power of communications technologies and how their techniques can be applied to heart health and stroke prevention.