ESCAPE FIRE premieres at the Sundance Film Festival 2012

A new documentary about our health care system just premiered at Sundance, the largest independent film festival in the US. Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare by Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke outlines the many problems with health care in a dramatic, compelling way, with beautiful footage and great characters. The best part are the stories of solutions in the film’s second half. Dr. Don Berwick, Head of Medicare and Medicaid from 2010-2011, who is featured in the film and was present at the Q&A said the film provided a needed vision of “how good our health care could be.”

We meet Dr. Dean Ornish at his Preventive Medicine Institute in California and learn about his research into how lifestyle changes may reverse heart disease and early cancer. He spent almost two decades trying to convince Medicare to pay for his lifestyle programs and finally succeeded a few years ago (read an article about it here). Dr. Andrew Weil is training physicians in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona. In his model, patients and providers are partners in the healing process. We see this come to life in several scenes in the film as Dr. Erin Martin, a primary care physician, works with patients at community health centers in Oregon. These are just a few examples of programs the film explores. Other interviewees include Shannon Brownlee, medical journalist, Dr. Steven Nissan of the Cleveland Clinic and General David Fridovich of the US Special Forces, among others.

I’m eager to follow Escape Fire as it moves out into the world. What role will it play in the many efforts to reform our broken system? How will it help generate conversations and move us towards action and impact? The film did generate a lively post-screening discussion where audience members couldn’t wait to share their own health (or health care) stories to the panel and assembled crowd. For more info read the Variety Review.

Senior Fellow Hannah Rosenzweig, MPH is in snowy Park City, Utah reporting on films at Sundance 2012 for the Center for Health, Media & Policy.

A new documentary about our health care

Reality TV ‘Jersey Shore’ uncharacteristically takes on mental health

Barbara Glickstein is co-director of the Center for Health, Media & Policy.

credit/imperfectwomen

Can reality TV challenge media stereotypes and address the social biases people living with depression and anxiety disorders face? Stereotypes about people are common in main-stream media and can be off the charts on reality television, which is a dominating force on television.  I’ve sat watching some reality TV, and I confess, I am not fun to watch them with, just ask my kids. As a media person, I think it’s important to check them out occasionally to critique them to evaluate what messages they’re selling.  I tried to watch Jersey Shore once, I didn’t last more than 10 minutes. Imagining that Jersey Shore would take on the issue of mental illness was pretty surprising.

For those of you not familiar with MTV‘s  show Jersey Shore, it’s a series that follows eight housemates spending their summer in New Jersey.  In the most recent episode, “Jersey Shore” member Vinny Guadagnino walked out of the house after a bout of anxiety.  He announced that he has left the show because of his depression and anxiety, and launched a campaign to assist those with mental health issues. He’s penned a book that will be released in April, Control the Crazy: My Plan to Stop Stressing, Avoid Drama and Maintain Your Inner Cool . He’s also launched a website.

Check out this article in AlterNet by Krystie Yandoli,  “Jersey Shore” — Mouthpiece for Mental Health Problems? She raises the question of its potential impact on the audience of Jersey Shore viewers, a show with record-breaking ratings that reached almost 9 million viewers in their third season.

The Kaiser Family Foundation published a report, “The Reality of Health: Reality Television and the Public Health.”  The report was published in 2006 – and suggested that the impact of health messages in reality television programming is complex and confusing and requires further studies.  Six years later there’s significantly more reality TV programming. It’s here to stay. Someone will have to take this on. Who’s going to take on 1000s of hours of viewing to study the health issues it addresses and their public health implications? It’s won’t be me but I am most curious about the findings.

Barbara Glickstein is co-director of the Center