Overview
Posted by aranya
As I pointed out in my May 16 post, Half of America is On Drugs well… how can I put this… half of America is on drugs! According to a Medco Health Solutions study, more than half of all insured Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic health problems.
“51 percent of American children and adults were taking one or more prescription drugs for a chronic condition, up from 50 percent the previous four years, and 47 percent in 2001. Most of the drugs are taken daily, although some are needed less often.”
Medco Health Solutions manages prescription benefits for about one in five Americans.
And take into consideration that this study only pertains to insured Americans (of which there are currently about 249.8 million). Think of all the people out there who are uninsured and taking prescription drugs – because they are in fact out there. They are either coughing up the money to buy medicine without insurance, or they are ordering drugs illegally from overseas pharmacies.
According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, both the percentage and the number of people without health insurance increased in 2006. The percentage without health insurance increased from 15.3 percent in 2005 to 15.8 percent in 2006, and the number of uninsured increased from 44.8 million to 47 million.
My point is, people want — and need — to know about prescription drugs. For this reason, I think my blog is relevant — however, I also think it could use some fine-tuning.
GOAL
My original mission-statement says the following: The purpose of my blog is to explore the ins and outs of prescription drug culture in America. Our culture is obsessed with the idea of a quick-fix pill for everything, and while some medicines are certainly miraculous, life-saving — and perhaps even life-changing — many of today’s pharmaceutical products are being used and abused, only to cause a whole host of undesirable side effects that ultimately require more medication to treat.
That is still my mission, although based on the feedback that I got from people who took my survey, I think my blog could be improved by having a tighter focus. My friend Lisa Spinelli, a web content producer with News9.com in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma said that while she loves the title of my blog, she found the description to be a little too vague. Spinelli said it seemed that I am covering a huge topic that might have too much information and “not enough focus on one issue.” She also noted that since I seemed to be concentrating on the destructive aspects of prescription drugs — aside from two or three posts — I might want to keep the negative factors of prescription drug use the focus of the blog, and outline that fact more succinctly in my mission statement. While, I would still like to explore both the good and bad aspects of prescription drug use in America, I think the focus of my blog could be, if not honed in, simply better organized. Prescription drugs are an incredibly broad topic, so I think it might be wise to arrange my posts into distinct and defined categories. My blog does do this to a certain degree already, but I think it could be improved.
If I had unlimited time and money to create “version 2.0” of my blog, I would definitely like to see it transformed into a more comprehensive site. Although I like the look of my current theme, I would probably try and find another one (or find a way to make some adjustments to the existing one) because I think the layout of categories and topics is slightly confusing. I would also incorporate some extra widgets to make the site more visually dynamic.
COMMUNITY
Unfortunately, I currently don’t have much of a community. But hopefully, with version 2.0 of Better Living Through Chemistry, that would change dramatically. Most of what I know right now comes from Google Analytics, and it appears that most of my readers are people that I know.
Not surprisingly, the vast majority of my visitors come from the United States, and of course, primarily from the Chicago area. Although I discuss overseas pharmacies, my blog topic is pretty much exclusively focused on prescription drug use in America because I think it is our culture in particular that is pill obsessed. I think I need to concentrate on attracting readers from prescription drug message boards and health sites. Those are the people that want to learn about the latest prescription drug news. However, I also think my blog could have some appeal to doctors and health care practitioners because prescription drugs are something that affects their day-to-day work life.
PLAN
• Aggressively advertise and promote my site by posting on social networking group sites, related discussion forums and similar blogs.
• Include more original reporting — audio and video interviews with relevant figures in the pharmaceutical industry.
• Provide better links and more of them.
• Add useful and engaging widgets.
• Improve the overall organization, layout and look of Better Living Through Chemistry.
May 23rd, 2010 at 8:49 am
Well, Just want to say what a great blog you got here! I’ve been around for quite a lot of time,but finally decided to show my appreciation of your work!
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Thanks so much for the positive feedback. I haven’t been maintaining Better Living Through Chemistry for quite some time, but I’m glad you found the information useful.