About Vida
Since 1985, Vida Health Communications has been working to improve the health of women, children and families through the production and distribution of evidence-based educational media for clinical, patient and lay audiences. Working in partnership with federal health agencies, researchers and leading medical professional groups, Vida translates complex research into practical, media-based training using DVD, CD-ROM, Internet and linear video technologies.
Vida’s programs involve research, clinical and field testing and content reviews by expert consultants. Media made by Vida is designed to engage the viewer while also positively affecting knowledge, attitudes and health behaviors. The topics our programs address include perinatal health, breastfeeding, labor & delivery, infant care, the balance of work and family, substance abuse and fetal alcohol syndrome.
Vida’s experience as educator and media producer sets it apart from other developers of public health interventions. Our award-winning programs integrate the latest scientific knowledge and advances in healthcare with consistently innovative approaches to visual and interactive media. Another distinguishing feature of our programs is their approach to depicting diversity across race, ethnicity and SES, which helps to ensure our programs are relevant and appealing to the wide variety of audiences we target. Vida has received well over 100 awards for its programs.
Vida’s activities include:
Partnerships
Vida partnered with the Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center’s (BMC) Department of Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics. With support from the Commonwealth Fund, BMC was developing a course to train pediatric residents about child behavior and development from birth through age six. Vida collaborated with pediatrics faculty to design a DVD curriculum incorporating demonstrations of clinical interviews and caregiving with a diverse patient population.
When Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Department of Obstetrics won an NIH grant to address rising rates of surgical births, Vida partnered with the medical school’s principal investigators to create a childbirth education curriculum to serve as an integral component of their project “Altering Cesarean Trends.”
Video Support for Publishers, Museums and other Not-For-Profit
When Houghton-Mifflin needed a DVD to support a new trade paperback release by Alan Kazdin on parenting difficult children they called Vida. When the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum wanted to document their school partnership program and the use of visual thinking strategies they called Vida. When the Spiral Foundation wanted to explain sensory integration clearly and succinctly to help support fundraising and educational outreach they called Vida.
Federally Supported Research
Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Awards have made it possible for Vida to craft media products specifically designed to fill important gaps in health education and professional staff development. Our federally funded program initiatives are subjected to particularly rigorous outcome evaluation. Vida is also a 2007 Tibbetts Award winner. These prestigious, national awards are made annually to those small firms, projects, organizations and individuals judged to exemplify the very best in SBIR achievement.
Customized Media Production
Vida is able to tailor its programs to address the specific educational needs of individual institutions. Vida’s media production expertise and state-of-the-art digital editing allow us to tailor any of our programs to suit organizational objectives whether they are educational or part of a membership or public affairs initiative. Hospitals, health maintenance organizations, state and county health departments and WIC offices are among the many clients for whom Vida has developed customized programming.
Translational Research Applications
Since 1997, Vida has been involved in NIH-supported work to “translate” the science-based work of medical researchers and to bring their findings to practitioners working in clinical settings. Vida’s FAS Multimedia Library is one example of this kind of innovative research undertaking. Another is Vida’s current project, Brain Development in Preterm Newborns, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.