Winners of the 2012 Sentinel for Health Awards for exemplary achievements of television storylines that inform, educate and motivate viewers to make choices for healthier and safer lives were announced at a ceremony Sept. 19 at the Writers Guild of America, West in Los Angeles.
The NBC drama Law & Order: SVU received first place in the Primetime Drama (major storyline) category for accurately portraying the emotional effects and legalities around childhood sexual abuse. An episode of Fox’s Touch earned first place in Global Health for a storyline about domestic abuse, and NBC’s hit, Up All Night, won first place in the Comedy category for a storyline about the realities of childbirth.
PBS’s Sesame Street took top honors in Children’s Programming for a storyline about food insecurity and hunger in America, while USA’s Necessary Roughness was named the winner in the Primetime Drama (minor storyline) category for its treatment of bipolar disorder. This year’s awards inaugurated a new category for Climate Change, for which Sprout’s The Sunny Side Up Show won for a segment on recycling.
The awards are presented on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S), a program of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
➻Press release and full list of the winners here