Real Health: Innovative Health Media Service to Increase Visual Image Diversity

描述（由申请人提供）：作为一家健康传播、多媒体和平面设计公司，我们和许多其他公司一样，需要高质量的免版税图片素材，用于制作健康教育材料，并通过印刷品或网络传递给不同的人群。不幸的是，缺乏现成的照片来描述具体的健康状况和行为。也很难找到与接受者的种族或社会经济地位等其他视觉特征相匹配的图像。我们对商业上可用的库存艺术照片的多样性进行了两项研究，经验证实可用的图像确实是有限的。我们对1100张随机选择的照片进行了内容分析，这些照片来自7家最大的商业库存艺术公司，可以在网上搜索到，在特征、环境、活动和健康状况方面几乎没有差异。然后，我们针对六种特定的特征/健康状况组合对所有在线图片库服务进行了扩展的、有针对性的搜索，只找到了89张照片（只有一个组合有超过10张照片）。健康教育媒介和材料缺乏多样化的形象是一个理论问题，也是一个现实问题。指导成功的健康计划的几种常见理论方法预测，当来源和模型在身体上具有吸引力并且与目标受众相似时，健康沟通在改变行为方面更有效。在说服和健康传播的研究中已经证实了描绘有吸引力和相似的模型/参照物的图像的优越性。修订后的第一阶段SBIR项目的目的是证明开发一套描述不同环境、健康行为、健康状况和人口统计数据的照片的可行性，称为“真实健康”，卫生和媒体专业人员可以使用这些照片，通过选择对接受者有吸引力但又相似的图像来提高卫生传播的有效性。修订后的第一阶段项目将通过实现以下目标来确认“真实健康”的可行性：1)为“真实健康”照片招募和雇用“真实”不同的人；2)拍摄符合专业质量标准的模特；3)确认所拍摄的照片填补了在人口统计学特征、健康状况和健康行为方面的初步探索性内容分析中发现的空白；4)确定公共卫生从业人员的数字图像需求，以确定将被纳入II期有效性试验的照片；5)证明真实健康照片在改善健康沟通以改变消费者健康行为方面的潜在有效性。该项目将由Klein Buendel， Inc.与几位专家顾问和两家主要的股票艺术公司一起进行。对第一阶段计划的修订包括加强视觉图像与健康改善之间的联系，澄清可行性测试程序，增加弱势群体同意的程序，并提议对消费者在健康传播中对真实健康照片的偏好进行第五次可行性测试。公共卫生相关性：描述为具有吸引力和与接受者相似的来源和模式可以通过吸引注意力、增进理解、产生个人主义和文化适当性的感觉以及引起接受者对它们的认同来增加健康信息的影响。制作改变健康行为的健康传播需要获得比目前从商业库存艺术公司获得的更多种类的照片，以便利用身体活动和类似来源/模型的力量。第一阶段SBIR项目的目的是证明开发一套描述各种环境、活动、健康状况和人口统计数据的照片集的可行性，这些照片集被称为“真实健康”，可用于提高健康交流的有效性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): As a health communication, multimedia and graphic design firm, we, like many others, are consumers of high quality royalty-free stock photography for the creation of health education materials for delivery in print or over the Web to various populations. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of readily available photographs that depict specific health conditions and behaviors. It also is difficult to locate images that match other visual characteristics of recipients such as race or socio-economic status. We performed two studies on the diversity in commercially-available stock art photographs that empirically confirmed that available images are, indeed, limited. We content analyzed 1,100 randomly-selected photographs from seven of the largest commercial stock art companies that are searchable online and found little diversity in terms of characteristics, settings, activities and health conditions. We then conducted an extended, targeted search of all online stock art services for six specific characteristic/health condition combinations and located only 89 photographs (only one combination had more than 10 photographs). The lack of diverse images for health education media and materials is a theoretic as well as practical problem. Several common theoretical approaches guiding successful health programs predict that health communication is more effective at changing behavior when sources and models are physically attractive and similar to the target audiences. The superiority of images depicting attractive and similar models/referents has been confirmed in research on persuasion and health communication. The purpose of this revised Phase I SBIR project is to demonstrate the feasibility of developing a collection of photographs depicting diverse settings, health behaviors, health conditions and demographics, called Real Health, that can be used by health and media professionals to increase the effectiveness of health communication by selecting images that are attractive yet similar to the recipients. The revised Phase I project will confirm the feasibility of Real Health by achieving the following: 1) recruiting and hiring "real" diverse people for the Real Health photographs; 2) taking photographs of the models that meet professional quality standards; 3) confirming that the photographs taken fill gaps identified in the initial exploratory content analysis in terms of demographic characteristics, health conditions and health behaviors, 4) ascertaining the digital image needs of public health practitioners in order to identify photographs to be included in a Phase II effectiveness trial, and 5) demonstrating the potential effectiveness of Real Health photographs at improving health communication for changing consumers' health behavior. The project will be conducted by Klein Buendel, Inc., along with several expert consultants and two major stock art companies. Revisions to the Phase I plan include fortifying the link between visual images and health improvement, clarifying feasibility test procedures, adding procedures for consenting vulnerable groups, and proposing a fifth feasibility test on consumers' preferences for Real Health photographs in health communication. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Sources and models depicted as attractive and similar to recipients can increase the impact of health messages by capturing attention, improving comprehension, engendering feelings of personalism and cultural appropriateness, and causing recipients to identify with them. Producing health communication that changes health behavior requires access to a much wider variety of photographs than currently available from commercial stock art companies in order to capitalize on the power of physically active and similar sources/models. The purpose of this Phase I SBIR project is to demonstrate the feasibility of developing a collection of photographs depicting diverse settings, activities, health conditions, and demographics called "Real Health" that can be used to increase the effectiveness of health communication.