By Pattie Stechschulte
Since chiropractic is becoming more popular among health care consumers, chiropractic
groups and associations have developed more effective publicity campaigns. The
associations around the country take an active role in representing chiropractic
through publicity campaigns like Spinal Health Month in October. The Florida
Chiropractic Association uses this event to encourage their members to gain
publicity in their community by sending media releases to media around the state
and also receive a proclamation from the governor. On a national level, the
main associations send out press releases to major media outlets on important
topics and news.
“The ACA focuses a great deal of its PR activities on securing pro-chiropractic
coverage by the nation’s media—and we’ve been extremely successful
positioning doctors of chiropractic as experts on a wide range of health care
issues. When a newspaper, magazine or television station publishes or airs a
pro-chiropractic news story, it serves, in effect, as a third party endorsement
of the services doctors of chiropractic provide,” says Felicity Feather
Clancy of the American Chiropractic Association.
In the last year, the ACA has featured spokesperson, Olympic medalist Derek
Parra in their video news releases including one that aired on “Health
& Home Report,” which has an estimated viewer ship of 10 to 12 million
viewers.
Sometimes it is necessary for chiropractic leaders to respond to inaccurate
portrayals of chiropractic. When the Public Broadcasting Service aired an episode
of Scientific American Frontiers titled “A Different Way to Heal?”
which focused on alternative health care and depicted chiropractic as an unscientific
and religion-based profession, D.D. Humber, D.C., president of the International
Chiropractors Association, wrote a detailed letter to the show’s producers,
responding to what he called, “the most negative picture of chiropractic
possible.”
© Copyright 2002 Today's Chiropractic