On Wednesday, February 24, Dr. Amy Jordan, head of APPC’s Media and the Developing Child program, provided testimony at Philadelphia City Council hearings on the complex challenges facing Philadelphia in the fight against obesity. The hearings – part of a larger initiative to promote healthy eating and physical activity in the community – aimed to
Health
ACI suicide research in the news
“Experts debunk suicide myth” (Washington Times) “Why the holiday suicide myth persists” (USA Today) Download the ACI press release
Holiday-Suicide Link: The Myth Persists
Despite the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s nine-year effort to debunk the connection, newspapers continue to perpetuate the myth that suicides rise during the end-of-year holiday period. According to an analysis of news reporting during last year’s (2008-09) holiday period, the proportion of stories that supported the myth remained at approximately the same level as during
APPC Health Communication Scholars Published in Journal of Sex Research
Michael Hennessy, Ph.D., research analysis manager at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, was lead author of a paper, “Estimating the Longitudinal Association Between Adolescent Sexual Behavior and Exposure to Sexual Media Content,” published in the Journal of Sex Research. Co-authors were APPC’s Dr. Amy Bleakley, Professor Martin Fishbein (principal investigator of the study), and Dr.
Findings released on mass media as an HIV-prevention strategy
In a study just released in the American Journal of Public Health, researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Adolescent Communication Institute (ACI) and five other universities along with a Philadelphia media development firm report that a mass media program directed to African American youth ages 14 to 18 reduced sexual risk behavior, especially among
