Queen's University Captures
Communications Student Award Again
From left to right: Kaitlynn Almeida, Kasthuri Paramalingam and Stephanie Ko.
For the second year in a row, Queen's University students
have been awarded the Sheela Basrur Centre Communications Student Award. Master
of Public Health students, Stephanie Ko, Kaitlynn Almeida and Kasthuri
Paramalingam were selected as the 2015 Communications Student Award (CSA)
recipients for their winning communications campaign, Gold for Gonorrhea.
This year’s CSA challenge called for students to submit
their ideas for increasing physician awareness about the recommended treatment
for gonorrhea as detailed in Public Health Ontario’s Guidelines for Testing
and Treatment of Gonorrhea in Ontario, released in 2013. A number of
innovative and unique communications strategies were submitted by the
applicants. Many of the campaigns went beyond raising awareness to address more
complex barriers to clinical guideline uptake.
The winning campaign, Gold
for Gonorrhea, provided practical and multi-faceted communications
strategies for raising physician awareness around the recommended
treatment. Their campaign focused on motivating health care providers to
be leaders among their peers, while encouraging physician adherence to
Ontario`s gonorrhea treatment guidelines.
The student trio was invited to present their winning
campaign to an audience of public health professionals at the Infectious
Disease Workshop in Toronto on October 9, 2015.
We congratulate the team of Queen’s University students for
their recent CSA win. Their ideas and creativity generated much-needed dialogue
on this critical public health issue.