LOS ANGELES -- Two prestigious new grants, including a grant to the University of Southern California from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are expanding the scope and ambition of Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S), the pioneering health communication program working with the television and film community, now in its seventh year at the USC Annenberg School for Communication's Norman Lear Center.
A three-year grant of over $1.37 million from the Gates Foundation will enable HH&S to develop an entertainment-education strategy to increase U.S. public support for global initiatives to reduce health disparities and disease around the world. Main goals of the new effort include increasing the accurate presentation of global health topics, such as HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, in popular primetime TV shows; and increasing understanding and support among TV viewers of global health programs that can save lives and reduce disease, especially in Africa.
