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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 16, 2004
Infusing Educational Messages into Entertaining Formats Links
Creative Talent with Science-based Professionals
2004 Entertainment-Education Conference Provides Forum To Advance Field
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Public health professionals will rub elbows with scriptwriters, directors, and producers this fall at the Fourth Annual Conference on Entertainment-Education (http://www.ee4.org)in the Western Cape, South Africa.
This year's conference will be held September 26th through the 30th and the principal organizer is the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs (CCP), which sponsored and organized the last three conferences. Other organizers include South Africa-based Soul City, the Health Communication Partnership (HCP), Netherlands Entertainment Education Foundation, Ohio University, DramAidE, and CADRE. HCP is a team of five leading institutions supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and led by CCP.
Entertainment-education, or "E-E," is the practice of using mass entertainment as a vehicle to deliver public health or other educational messages. Radio shows, rock concerts, live theater, local folk media, or television dramas are all forms of entertainment-education, which has become a standard component of strategic health communication. CCP, one of the leaders in the field, helps developing countries with accurate health messages, while scriptwriters make sure the material is entertaining.
Titled "EE4: Community and Context" this year's conference will explore traditional forms of communication including storytelling, songs, and drama alongside mass communication approaches.
View this year's program, register to attend, or submit an abstract. Previous conferences were held in Los Angeles; Athens, Ohio; and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The Amsterdam Conference in 2000 resulted in the development of the EE2000 Declaration, which committed participants to continue advancing and expanding the field to benefit society.
HCP is a global communication initiative led by CCP in partnership with the Academy for Educational Development, Save the Children, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, and Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. In addition to the five core partners, HCP works with leading Southern-based health communication organizations as well as global programming partners from the corporate sector, international media, academic institutions, and faith-based organizations. Visit the HCP website for more information and a full list of HCP partners and collaborators.
With representatives in more than 30 countries, Johns Hopkins' CCP is a pioneer in the field of strategic, research-based communication programs for behavior change and health promotion that have helped transform the theory and practice of public health communication.
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