This week, thirteen schools of public health joined up with ASPH to become early adopter of materials developed as part of a national marketing and branding initiative.   In 2006, under the guidance of the ASPH Communications Committee, chaired by Dean Max Michael (UAB), ASPH hired the communications and marketing agency SS+K to build awareness and support for public health nationally and to promote the value and importance of public health.

The initiative will take many dimensions, including:

• Schools’ adoption of a communications toolkit to help schools communicate more consistently about the value of public health while emphasizing each school’s individual contributions.
• Involvement of public health students in the 2008 Presidential elections. To date, the schools have coordinated by enlisting the help of their students in uploading videos for the CNN-YouTube Republican debate and also were invited to submit questions to reporters as part of ABC’s partnership with Facebook. 
• Coordination of Recognition Campaigns by students around National Public Health Week. As announced in this week’s Friday Letter, ASPH is releasing an RFP for students to develop recognition campaigns around National Public Health Week.  The early adopter schools will be integral to the execution of this national event.
• Development of a media strategy for the ASPH headquarters.  The intent is to make schools of public health more visible and more accessible to the press corps and national media.   The early adopter schools will be encouraged to participate in this initiative and to replicate many of the ensuing ideas at the state and local level.

ASPH will report announcements and milestones on each initiative in future issues of the Friday Letter.  For general information about the branding and communications effort, please contact Ms. Allison Foster at afoster@asph.org.