Effectiveness of the Public Service Enouncement on Gun Safety - Term Paper Example

Gun Death al Affiliation) This paper will be concerned with the evaluation and measurement of the effectiveness of the Public Service enouncement on gun safety using the social media such as facebook and twitter. The paper will be examined in two parts. The first part will examine gun-related deaths and injuries in the Children and the teens in the united States. This will further be evaluated in relation to the public awareness that has been created with the social media as the second part of the study. Consequently, the paper will arrive at certain conclusion that shall have addressed the problem on point. Gun related death and injury has certain scope that must always be examined. In 2010 alone, 18,270 children died or were injured by the gun. (Bernard, S. J., Paulozzi, L. J., Wallace, L. J. D., 2007) The study further revealed that in daily basis, seven teens or children died of the gun violence. Gun related death has been ranked as one of the leading causes of the teen death in United States of America. (Vitelli, R, 2014)This record has been noted to be 30% higher than when the records were first gathered in 1963. There was however some decline that was witnessed between 2009 and 2014. The decline was however a generalization of both the homicide and the suicide. (Vitelli, R, 2014) There are variations that are always witnessed between the races in terms of the statistical that reveal death as a result of gun violence. In the study conducted in 2010, Bernard, S. J., Paulozzi, L. J., Wallace, L. J. D., (2007) revealed that of the 2694 deaths that were recorded, blacks were 1205, whites 909, Hispanic 512, American Indian, 41 while pacific islanders were 27. The same findings revealed that the black teens were more predispose to both the deaths and injuries as a result of gun violence, at 45% and 46% respectively, than any other race in United States. There are a number of risks that predisposes individuals to gun and the violence related to it. Study reveals that a gun in the home raises likelihood of homicide three times, while such gun would also propagate suicide at a rate of 3 to 5 times. (Parks, S. E., Johnson, L. L., McDaniel, D. D., Gladden, M., 2014) The same risk would present in the form of accidental death at 3 to 4 times. Further, the study found that one third of the household that included children as well as teens who would be younger than eight years had a gun. These guns in the house could also be handled by around 22% of the children even without their parents’ knowledge. However, it was also clear that more than 40% of the families that had guns stored their guns unloaded. (Parks, S. E., Johnson, L. L., McDaniel, D. D., Gladden, M., 2014) Other factors that the study observed to be a risk factor in gun violence among the teen in United States of America were noted to include: poverty, living environment, low academic performance, early environmental and family stress, affiliation with antisocial peers as well as neighborhood violence In consideration of the gender of the victim teens who were noted to be dying out of the gun violence, male death were recorded at 87% while the female were 13%. (Leventhal, J.M., Gaither, J.R., Sege, R., 2014) In the study that was conducted globally to assess the case of gun violence, CDF (2014) noted that compared to other high income country, gun violence among children in the United States was 17 times higher than other countries put together, followed by Canada which was at a ratio of 75 deaths in every 100,000 gun death among teens in the globe. This situation has also affected the global economic standing due to the cost presented by the gun death among teens. Leventhal, J.M., Gaither, J.R., Sege, R., (2014) points that, in United States, the cost was $174.1B in 2010 alone. This cost was even much increased among the teens that witnessed violence. From this point the paper will attempt to examine the consequences that are presented as a result of exposure to violence. After which, the concept of social media will be brought into play to elaborate the efforts that have been made to contain the situation. One of the most common problems with violence exposure has been regarded as being cognitive, and emotional that may bring disruption in development. (Garbarino, James. 2008) This can be presented in the form of post traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD), aggression, depression, withdrawal as well as academic failure. Others are impulsivity, anxiety, eating as well sleep disorder. As noted by Garbarino, James. (2008), if these conditions are not treated, then they may result into further death or result into nagging cycle of violence among the victims. To bring the whole concept of the gun death among the teens in United States of America into perspective, it is fair to conclude that firearms are a significant and preventable cause of morbidity for US children. Public health therefore needs to make a lot of efforts on reducing these avoidable causes of injury and death. Specific suggestions like those presented by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which insists that all guns should be removed from homes and that guns should be stored safely with high restriction for their access, should be taken to account. Education on the use of guns and the means of morbidity should be enhanced. To this end, the paper will examine efforts that have been made in the realms of the public health to create awareness in the challenges that the country is facing in handing deaths as a result of gun among teenage. First, it is important to evaluate the differences that are caused by the campaigns that have been staged. As suggested by Strain, Christopher B., (2010), the most import thing is the criticality of the campaign strategy that has been adopted. The campaigners need to try to identify what they believe to be workable in their attempt to meet the goals that they have. In the process, they have to tried to improve the PSA message while also monitoring the processes, the outcomes and the overall impact that the campaign has as the impact to the audience they target in the society. (Strain, Christopher B., 2010) Some of the ways in which the Public health needs to put in place while evaluating the objectives that they had is to try and measure the effects of the PSA on the awareness that, beliefs and actions of the audience. They also need to measure the effects of both average and above average media schedule over time and also to create a research model to help in evaluating future PSA campaign. To this point the paper will attempt to examine the role of social media in this campaign on the gun death. Social media has been identified as a very critical and interactive in two ways. First, it is because its impact can be measured quickly and able to pinpoint the exact medium. (Strain, Christopher B., 2010)This is because the lag time between sending a message and knowing if it worked is easier as compared to that of the traditional media. It is also a cost effective way of communication which yield the feedback almost immediately. There are a number of factors that have been identified as ways to ensure that the use of social media is effective. These ways include; defining the goal, identifying audience and determining how social media effect affects them, determination of specific indicator by which one would be able to define success, selection of tools for each goal, use of web analytics. There are a number of tools that the campaigners need to utilize specifically the tracking tools. It is import that individuals understand that measuring social media is not about engagement that it has on a give conversation, rather, it is the effectiveness of the a PSA dependent not only on the quality and quantity of campaign messages, but also the difficulty of achieving the intended outcome and the receptivity of the audience to the health behavior being promoted (Charles Atkin. 2001) It is therefore recommended that there is a need for a universal process for the evaluation of behavioral social media campaigns, and standardizing criteria measures for comparison of outcomes across different campaigns References Bernard, S. J., Paulozzi, L. J., Wallace, L. J. D., (2007). Fatal injuries among children by race and ethnicity-United States, 1999- 2002. Surveillance Summaries, May 18, 2007 MMWR 2007;56:SS-5 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDF, 2014 The State of Americas Children 2014 Report http://www.childrendefense.org/child-research-dat-2014 3/20/14 Garbarino, James. (2008) Children and the dark side of human experience confronting global realities and rethinking child development.. New York: Springer, Print. Leventhal, J.M., Gaither, J.R., Sege, R., 2014. Hospitalizations due to firearm injuries in children and adolescents Pediatrics 2014; 133;219 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/133/2/219.full.html 3/11/14 Strain, Christopher B., (2010). Reload: rethinking violence in American life. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press,. Print. Parks, S. E., Johnson, L. L., McDaniel, D. D., Gladden, M. 2014.Surveillance for Violent Deaths – National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), 16 States, 2010. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). Surveillance Summaries Jan. 17, 2014/63 (SS01):1-33. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6301a1.htm 4/3/14 Vitelli, R, (2014). Protecting children from guns: can health professionals help prevent gun violence involving children? March 10 Psychology Today http://psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201403/protecting-children 3/20/14 . Read More