I definitely enjoyed the length of the articles this week, I thought they were much more manageable and although I read the articles and thought that I understood the main concepts the quiz was a little bit challenging for me to recall some of the specific names and things. I really prefer short answer to multiple choice on almost any test.
I thought the Gelb and Johnson article on Word of Mouth communication was interesting because I never thought about word of mouth communication being so important in public health because most health campaigns focus on reaching as many people in the target population as possible but if word of mouth is much more influential that mass media it is an important avenue to consider. Also there was one thing I was unclear about, what was meant by low-risk innovations?
As for the SMOG tool to assess the level of your writing, I have used this before in other classes and I thought that it was very helpful. Often we don't realize that a lot of what we write or say is just not understood by everyone because being graduate students we are more educated than the average person and even educated people prefer simple and direct messages so that everything is clearly understood.
Lastly, the article on health literacy and the hard to reach audience was both hit and miss for me. I completely agree that there are certain groups that we want and need to target because they are not receiving the information or services that they need but, like the article says, the don't make themselves inaccessible. Also, I agree that certain groups are under-represented because the way we segment and sample tends to exaggerate the majority. However, I don't think that hard to reach is such a pejorative term that implies lack of knowledge, education, or resources, but at the same time we should highlight the positive aspects of peoples differences.

A note to the group, I have the surveys that the kids filled out Thursday and we have a sample of 6 boys, 6 girls, 4 twelve year olds, 4 thirteen year olds, and 4 fourteen year olds. 4 Caucasian, 2 Hispanic, 1 African American, Hispanic, and Native American, and 5 "Other" 9 prefer group work, only 2 prefer individual, and 1 said both. We can look at the rest of the information in class I just wanted to give you guys a heads up.