This article highlights critical fundamental issues and concerns around framing public health programs during marketing in order to attract funds from the government and the wealthy. There are serious misperceptions in the society and particularly among leaders that tend to equate public health with poverty and disability. Little research has been done on framing public health despite the active efforts by health practitioners; which could be due to failure to comprehend public health. A commonly understood policy that advocates for public health is non existent. The failure of congress to advocate for policies that protect health concerns of their citizens is a threat to public health. Funding to public health emanates from the government yet such concerns do not motivate leaders to action (APHA, 2005). The widespread notion that supporting health only benefits the poor and disabled shuts support from the wealthy and powerful people hence kill efforts of social marketing and public health advocacy (Gordon, 2002).
Policies that incorporate sacrifice theme to public health have failed since relating public health to the poor prevented the wealthy from getting concerned with issues of public health. The existence of conflicts of interest among the leaders has also been identified as a concern since these leaders are not likely to advocate for the wealthy to contribute towards public health programs (Ling et al., 2004). The government only comes in when its security and that of every citizen is in danger and only in such instances do they fund certain health issues. Bioterrorism attracts a lot of funding compared to chronic diseases and injuries and no measures are taken to reduce the number of deaths due to such diseases. Funds are also allocated to disasters, emergency preparedness as these are of security and political concerns. Poor policies and programs that affect public health issues are varied raging from health behavior change, public health policy adoption and targeting particular programs for funding. Funding war against imagined terrorism while neglecting public health; which in itself kills even more people is a clear case of misplaced priorities by government.
References
American Public Health Association. (2005). The precautionary principle and public health. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association; 2001. Web.
Gordon, J. C. (2002). Guidelines for Effective Health Promotion Messages. Journal of extension, December 2002, Vol. 40:6.
Ling J. C., Franklin B. A., Lindsteadt J, F., Gearon, S. N. (2004). Social Marketing: Its place in Public Health. Ann. Rev. Public Health, 13: 341-62.