New media has made health promotion so much more interesting. And fun.

Check out this example – the US Department of Health and Human Services has launched a competition for a public service announcement on swine flu prevention. It’s a clever way of getting people to engage with public health messages.

I quite liked the rapping doc and the bagman – but top billing has to go, in my view anyway, to chainsaw man. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7FhpRMc2n0&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

What do you think?

Would Australian health departments ever let us have so much fun? Somehow I just can’t imagine our politically constrained bureaucrats letting rip like this.

Mind you, they will need to come up with some innovative strategies if they’re to have any hope of getting much uptake of the H1N1 vaccination program…