Christina's Final Reflection

What interested me about this course? Is it different from what interested me at the start of the course?

At the start of the course, I was more focused on individual choices and their impact on personal health. But working through the ecological model for the portfolio reminded me of the additional layers we have to take into consideration – peer relationships especially with adolescents, but also policy considerations. For example, our workshop included education around emergency contraception, and we learned firsthand that the maze of differing state and local laws and regulations can be confusing and complicated for health educators/communicators and our audiences. So, it was a useful exercise to remind us that all of the personal communication and education takes place in a broader context.

How did this class impact me as a health professional?

In my initial reflection I talked about the challenge of persuading adolescents of risk and their own mortality. I had lamented that it is difficult to achieve a balance between communicating health risks while still encouraging them to take creative risks that enable them to achieve. But I found many of the teens in the workshop to be very level-headed and grounded in the reality of risks. Many of them really seemed to get the fact that their choices today can impact their quality of life down the road. So, while I am still interested in getting the right balance in risk communication, the experience reminded me to credit their survival skills and common sense.

Where do I go from here?

My professional life is focused more on mass communication rather than interpersonal communication. I tend to work on big, national communication and social marketing campaigns like the launch of the Medicare prescription drug benefit. I am gearing up now for a campaign to increase enrollment in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). So, I don’t think I’ll have the opportunity to lead community-level workshops among adolescents in the near future, but I think the experience of the course has opened my eyes to what I should be looking for when we sign up partnering organizations for these big campaigns.

Personally, I enjoyed the course because it took me out of my natural habitat and comfort zone. I also enjoyed observing and admiring my colleagues in action!