SOCIAL MARKETING IN THE NEWS
SAMHSA Announces $15.5 Million for Brief Interventions to Deal with College Students at Risk of Substance Abuse
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) today announced the award of 12 grants totaling $15.5 million over three years to combat underage drinking and drug abuse by promoting innovative screening, brief interventions and referral to treatment of college and university students with a high risk of substance use disorders. [Awards include $500,000 per year for three years to Northeastern University] to enhance and expand current efforts to reduce student alcohol and drug abuse through a comprehensive framework of evidence-based strategies targeting the overall student population through social marketing techniques, screening and intervention, and improved referral linkage to community treatment providers.
ExxonMobil Announces New Community Investment Initiative
Exxon Mobil Corporation announced a new community investment initiative, Educating Women and Girls. An extension of ExxonMobil's longstanding support for education, this multi-year initiative will fund numerous education projects for women and girls in the developing world.
ExxonMobil will spend $3 million in 2005, the first year of this program. Today's announcement includes the initiative's first nine grants that will fund projects in Angola, Chad, Kazakhstan, Qatar and Indonesia, as well as two projects with a global focus. This most recent community initiative complements ExxonMobil's ongoing efforts to support the communities where it operates, including its signature Africa Health Initiative, a $10 million-a-year program.
[2205 Grant Awards include] Population Services International (PSI): For social marketing of long-lasting insecticide-treated bed-nets in Angola and Cameroon.
Jamaican Government Developing 'Welfare to Work' Programme
[The Social Safety Net Reform Programme (SSN)] is a network of Government programmes designed to provide cash, in-kind benefits and social services to poor and vulnerable persons.
Some of the programmes under the SSN are the school-feeding programme, Health Fee Waiver and Jamaica Drugs for the Elderly Programme and Programme for Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH).
Dr. Wesley Hughes, director-general of the PIOJ, said there was a lack of social cohesion and social capital in communities. He noted that a fundamental objective of the SSN was to achieve social cohesion.
Meanwhile, a study which was commissioned by PIOJ in six of the island's poorest parishes, revealed that the PATH has had a positive impact on people's lives. However, it was revealed that many persons, especially in the rural areas, were unaware of the SSN and believed that the benefits were administered solely through PATH. The findings of the research have guided the design of a social marketing programme, which will inform the public about the SSN reform.
CDC Uses Peers to Reach At-Risk Populations
A two-year project in seven cities funded by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention urges people living with HIV to convince their peers to get tested as an attempt to increase testing among those at high risk for contracting the disease.
People recruited for HIV testing through the CDC’s social network project were five times more likely to be infected than people who are tested in traditional settings such as public health clinics, according to the federal health agency. First-year results from the project were published June 24 in the CDC’s Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report.
Increased testing for HIV is crucial as a second wave of HIV infections plagues gay and bisexual men, especially those who are African American, said Armando Hernandez, publications and social marketing manager for the National Association of People With AIDS, the Maryland-based group that created National HIV Testing Day more than a decade ago.
3:23:44 PM 
|
