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Public Health Awareness Campaign Idea

 Invisible, tasteless, odorless, but potentially fatal. 

Those are hallmarks of two important health issues: radon gas and hypertension.  Radon is a naturally occurring, radioactive gas that is undetectable to the human senses.  Unfortunately, it is a leading cause of lung cancer, second only to smoking.  Furthermore, smoking combined with high radon exposure increases the risk of lung cancer several fold [1].


Likewise, hypertension (high blood pressure) usually has no warning signs and can lead to a variety of health issues if left unchecked.  Health risks include heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease [2].


Both of these issues have fairly straightforward management once detected.  Radon mitigation in basements and other locations can often be accomplished for under a thousand dollars.  High blood pressure, for its part, can be managed with lifestyle changes and medication.

So, the major issue with radon, hypertension, and other health risks of similar nature are effective public awareness campaigns.  To that end, a researcher might apply for a grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH) or other organizations to fund a traditional public awareness campaign.  The campaign  may include outreach events, printed brochures, phone surveys, etc. 

The Prevent Cancer foundation gives out grants of $25K [3].  The average research grant size from the NIH is about $500K [4].  However, an R01 from NIH could be $500K for 3-5 years, so we're talking potentially $3M.  What if instead of spending a few million dollars on traditional public awareness campaign, you raised awareness another way in the following way:

Hit movie or TV show

  • It costs about $18 million for the average movie.
  • It costs about $1 million for the average TV show episode.

So either way, it is a bit of a long shot but here's the crux of idea.  Get a $3M grant from NIH to start producing an action-adventure TV show or low budget movie where the plot hinges on a public health risk.  Therefore, at the end viewing, the audience is entertained but comes away with real-world knowledge of health risks on the side.

Pros:

  • well-produced, hit show/movie would be best awareness you could get 
  • after initial funding, you'd make money on the show and could perpetuate health awareness going forward

Cons: 

  • large initial investment
  • lots of interdisciplinary buy-in and collaboration required
  • the ability to sell the concept to skeptical grant reviewers
  • the ability to expertly tell stories with a balance of both facts and entertainment

Again, this idea really out there.  But, given that public awareness campaigns require repetition and competing against other messages to be effective [5], I could see a creative and crazy genius making it work.  I am not such a person.  So, I'll be content to imagine what it'd look like in the meantime.


References:

[1] https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-12/documents/2016_a_citizens_guide_to_radon.pdf 

[2] cdc.gov/bloodpressure/about.htm  

[3] https://www.preventcancer.org/research/grants-fellowships/community-grants/

[4] https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2021/04/21/fy-2020-by-the-numbers-extramural-investments-in-research/

[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4248563/

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