For two weeks in May 2011, Hollywood, Health & Society Director Sandra de Castro Buffington took six TV and film writers on research trips to Johannesburg, South Africa and Mumbai, India, to learn about global health challenges and low cost, effective solutions. The groups explored each city, learning about health problems and social issues and meeting with individuals and organizations working for positive change.
During their immersion in South Africa and India, members of the entertainment community participated in two successful, inspiring panel discussions with local TV and film writers, and others involved in entertainment education in-country. The South Africa panel was titled From California to Cape Town: How TV Reaches Global Audiences on Key Health Topics, and the India panel was called From Hollywood to Bollywood: How Film & TV Reach Global Audiences on Key Health Topics. The American writers and producers were joined by local representatives from the entertainment community. All panelists showed clips of their work to the audience, and shared their thoughts on writing about health topics, their approaches to writing dramas with impact, and television as a vehicle for education and social change.
At this Hollywood, Health & Society panel discussion held at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, health and entertainment experts spoke about the science behind climate change and the way it affects life on Earth, emerging solutions and the entertainment media's portrayal of these issues. Simply put, "human survival is dependent on managing climate change," said Sandra de Castro Buffington, the director of Hollywood, Health & Society. The keynote speaker, Dr. George Luber of the Centers for Disease Control, said the scientific findings about the planet's warming were "unequivocal" and a direct result of an increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases during the past 50 years.
On November 3, 2010, HH&S held the global health panel discussion: “5 Simple Ways to Save a Life,” featuring Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, director of Global Health Vaccine Delivery for The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Larry Kaplow, consulting producer for the hit FOX-TV series House, MD, and many others at Writers Guild of America, West. Dr. Venkayya oversees late-stage development of health technologies and interventions, as well as efforts to expand access to health solutions in the developing world. In a former post, he served as senior director for biodefense at the White House, where one of his key responsibilities was development and implementation of the U.S. strategy for pandemic influenza.
In 1974, Annenberg Journalism Professor Joe Saltzman produced what has been acknowledged to be the first TV documentary on breast cancer, an hour-long program called Why Me? This groundbreaking documentary addressed a subject not seen before on television. The award-winning program was viewed by one out of every three women in the Western world, and it has been credited with saving thousands of lives. It is hard to imagine a time when women would not speak publicly about breast cancer, but in 1974, it was an act of courage for a woman to appear on television to talk about what was considered a deadly disease. In addition to the screening of the documentary, a panel of communication experts, moderated by Judy Muller, an Emmy Award-winning television correspondent and associate professor of journalism, will discuss the making of the documentary and how it paved the way for contemporary approaches to documentary making, as well as current television dramas and how they approach the discussion of breast cancer, cancer awareness programs and treatment. The event was moderated by Saltzman, who is the director of the Lear Center's Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (IJPC) project. Sandra de Castro Buffington, director of the center's Hollywood, Health & Society program, was a panel participant.
Hollywood, Health & Society announced the winners of this year's Sentinel for Health Awards at a moving ceremony, followed by a panel discussion with the writers on September 22 at the Writers Guild of America, West, in Los Angeles.
Sandra de Castro Buffington, director of Hollywood, Health & Society, presented “Obesity Storylines Go Primetime: Working with Hollywood’s Writers to Tackle Obesity in TV, Film and New Media” at the Child Obesity: A Call to Action summit.
Lear Center director Marty Kaplan presented the talk "Hollywood, Health & Society: The Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California" September 7 at the MINTiff "Don't Think It's Only Entertainment..." Conference in Berlin. The MINTiif (Mathematics, Computer Science, Natural Science, Technology and Equal Opportunities in TV Drama Formats) project is funded by the German Federal Education Ministry and the European Social Fund to explore the lack of role models for women on TV in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Watch Part 2 | Watch Part 3
Sandra de Castro Buffington, director of Hollywood, Health & Society, presented “The Media and the Message: Sexual Violence Storylines on Primetime TV” at the National Sexual Assault Conference. Professionals from rape crisis centers, survivors, coalitions, prevention programs, law enforcement and the military participated in the conference, which featured more than 80 workshops and a strong focus on technology and social media. The three-day event, held in Hollywood, California, was a collaborative project of the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the Pennsylvania Coalition against Rape and the National Sexual Violence resource Center.
Sandra de Castro Buffington, director of Hollywood, Health & Society, was joined by research specialist Sheena Nahm and Chris Dzialo, transmedia outreach specialist, in presenting “The Art and Science of Public Health Storytelling On Air and Online: CDC Experts and Hollywood’s Writers Impact Public Health Worldwide” at the CDC National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media, in Atlanta. Also participating was Grey's Anatomy writer-producer Dr. Zoanne Clack.
