271729 Framing Public Health: Intersecting Challenges around Food Systems and Equity

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 : 8:35 AM - 8:53 AM

Lori Dorfman, DrPH , Berkeley Media Studies Group, Berkeley, CA
Public health advocates and researchers face at least three formidable challenges when communicating about equitable food systems. First, dominant cultural frames favor rugged individualism and obscure the effects of systems and structures that affect health. Second, establishing health equity depends on recognizing and dismantling structural racism along with barriers based on class and gender—all hard to talk about but even harder to do. Third, typical news frames reinforce personal attributions of responsibility making it difficult to explain the landscape of food systems and health equity. Recent research exploring the invisibility of labor in discussions about food systems illustrates the depth of these challenges. This presentation reviews the research on framing and raises questions for researchers and advocates seeking guidance in making the case for equitable food systems.

Learning Areas:
Communication and informatics
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
1. Name the framing tensions in U.S. culture that make it hard for people to understand the idea of a "food system"; 2. Describe how shifting to "landscapes" instead of "portraits" in news stories may help policy makers and the public understand the need for food systems policy; and 3. Explain how the absence of labor in discussions of food systems reinforces health disparities and makes it harder for us to achieve health equity.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I direct BMSG where, since 1993, we have analyzed media and worked with groups across the country to build their capacity to use media advocacy in contentious policy debates. Our current research includes analyses of food marketing targeting children and comparisons of how tobacco and obesity are framed in news stories.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.