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Our Christina Aguilera / Skechers campaign among those recognized with 2005 AAN Media Awards

November 12, 2005 -- Tonight the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) presented one of its Media Awards to the Center for the second year in a row. The 2005 award recognized our successful campaign to end the Skechers shoe company's global advertising campaign featuring pop star Christina Aguilera dressed as a "naughty nurse." After more than 3,000 Center supporters sent letters of protest, Skechers pulled the ad from print media and point-of-sale displays worldwide. The other three 2005 Media Award winners were the Tobacco Free Nurses Initiative, "My Body Mondays" with Nurse Dr. Mimi Mahon on Philadelphia radio station WXPN-FM's "Kids Corner," and Chicago's Nurses Parade, a book by Connie Robinson, Carolyn Hope Smeltzer, and Frances Vlasses.

The Center's Christina Aguilera / Skechers campaign received extensive worldwide television, radio and print media coverage in late 2004. Coverage appeared in more than 30 media organs in at least 17 nations, including China, the UK, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Estonia. See the complete list of our press coverage and links to the original news items. The Center received a 2004 Media Award from AAN in recognition of our ongoing efforts to improve the portrayal of nursing on NBC's popular drama "ER." The Center's executive director Sandy Summers receives the award in the photo below.

According to the AAN's program materials, the Tobacco Free Nurses Initiative helps nurses to help their patients stop smoking, and is the first national campaign to help nurses with their own smoking cessation efforts. The materials note that the smoking rate among RN's is dropping, but is still 15%, five times higher than the rate for physicians. The multimedia TFN project (www.tobaccofreenurses.org) is the work of Harriet Bennett and Cpt. Tina Murray, Collaborators; Stella Bialous, Erica Sivarajan Froelicher, and Mary Ellen Wewers, Co-Investigators; and Susan Alexander, Media Development.

The AAN program materials also explain that for 17 years Dr. Mimi Mahon has been a regular guest on WXPN's Kids Corner, a live call-in radio show with 170,000 listeners. On the show, Mahon has discussed a variety of health topics of importance to kids, including chronic conditions, sexual abuse, and safety issues. The show's producer is Robert Drake and the host is Kathy O'Connell.

Chicago's Nurses Parade is about the parade the City of Chicago mounted to honor nurses during the years 1949-1958. According to the AAN materials, the parade's purpose was to give nurses a "day of glory" and spur recruitment to this "undermanned, noble, and caring profession." The book includes information on the nursing shortage of the 1950's. Floats in the parade reportedly depicted the work of nurses in order to "educate the public."

The AAN also gave four Honorable Mentions for media activities. They went to:

  • GEM-Nursing: An Online Mentoring Program by the the University of Michigan, School of Nursing and the U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau;
     
  • the Kaiser Permanente Nursing for Life Campaign by Kaiser Permanente Multimedia;
     
  • "Been There, Done That," in the magazine Reflections on Nursing Leadership, a story on U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona, RN, MD, MPH, by James Mattson; and
     
  • Women's Voices Women's Lives, a video directed and edited by Chad Abraham Minnich.
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