Diffusion of Innovation, Coursework Example

The diffusion of innovations theory attempts to explain how, why, and how quickly new ideas spread through cultures (Rogers, 1983). This is important to consider in the establishment of public health campaigns because it allows public health professionals to determine how to best help and access their target patient populations. A study sponsored by the California Health Care Foundation concluded that there are ten critical dynamics of innovation diffusion, including: relative advantage, trialability, observability, communications channels, homophilous groups, pace of innovation/reinvention, norms, roles, and social networks, opinion leaders, compatibility, and infrastructure. One of the more important concepts discussed in this paper was relative advantage, which states that “the more potential the value or benefit anticipated from adoption of the innovation relative to current practice, the more rapidly it will diffuse” (Cain & Mittman, 2002).

It would be important for me to consider relative advantage in the development of my public health campaign because it is important to reach a majority of my patient population in order to ensure efficacy. By benefitting members of the community who are African American women with type 2 diabetes, I will be able to demonstrate the value of my campaign. Ultimately, this will attract more participants, and partnerships with local health care institutions could be established on this basis. For this to be possible, it is important for participants to emphasize the value of this program by word of mouth. It is likely that based on their recommendations, their friend who also belong to the target population will become involved in this public health endeavor. It is anticipated that providing good services to these individuals will therefore result in the potential of helping a greater portion of this population.

References

Cain M, Mittman R. (2002). Diffusion of Innovation in Health Care. Retrieved from             http://faculty.mercer.edu/thomas_bm/classes/641/Diffusion%20of%20Innovations%20in    %20Healthcare.pdf

Rogers EM. (1983). Diffusion of Innovations. New York: Free Press.