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.
The Lear Center's Hollywood, Health & Society program brought together top experts on the science and psychology of addiction to discuss cutting-edge research with the producers and writers from A&E's Emmy Award-winning series Intervention at the Writers Guild of America, West. The briefing was co-sponsored by HH&S, the WGAW and A&E/Intervention and kicks off a new bi-monthly speaker series in which experts will help Intervention's creative team tell accurate and compelling stories about all forms of addiction.
Hollywood, Health & Society Director Sandra de Castro Buffington presented “Recovery and the Media: Addiction and Treatment in Entertainment and News—The Road to Recovery” at the US Department of Health and Human Services and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for the National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month in Rockville, Maryland, on July 7, 2010.
Hollywood, Health & Society director Sandra de Castro Buffington was asked to join the Millenium Project's Global Arts and Media Node and presented a talk at the State of the Arts 2010 Symposium, offered by Millenium Project's partner organization, c3: Center for Conscious Creativity.
Director of HH&S Sandra de Castro Buffington presented “Entertainment for Social Change: Working with Hollywood’s Storytellers to Improve Health and Well Being Worldwide” at the Culture of Peace Distinguished Speaker Series. The event was held at the Soka Gakkai International (SGI-ISA) Culture of Peace Resource Center in Santa Monica. The distinguished speaker series seeks to engage people in a dialogue on the values, attitudes and behaviors that reject violence and inspire creative energy toward peaceful resolution of conflicts.
Sandra de Castro Buffington, director of Hollywood, Health & Society, moderated this discussion that brought top TV producers, writers and performers together to meet with key Washington policymakers on Capitol Hill. With a focus on showing how global health issues are depicted in entertainment media, the discussion covered such topics as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and more. The event drew over 100 guests, and six congressional offices, nine U.S. government agencies and more than 10 nonprofit stakeholders were represented. Panelists included actress Mariska Hargitay, co-star of Law & Order: SVU, who spoke about her experiences with the show that led her to start the Joyful Heart Foundation for victims of sexual assault. Neal Baer, executive producer of the show, also joined the panel, and showed clips from a recent film by Alcides Soares about HIV/AIDS orphans in Mozambique. Sally Canfield of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spoke about public health interventions that work globally, such as vaccinations for preventable diseases and bed nets to combat malaria. Watch Part 2 | Watch Part 3 | Read transcript
