COCM Mission and Vision

The mission of​ the Council on Communications and Media (COCM) is to ensure that children, families, and the pediatricians who care for them, have the knowledge and tools to make informed, health-promoting choices regarding the communication of messages to or about children through media, health education, and other sources.

The Council will achieve this mission by serving, energizing, and organizing AAP Members for effective advocacy, education, research, policy development, and dissemination.

Vision

Children and families will be better prepared to balance the messages they receive so they can make choices that promote health and well-being. Pediatricians will accomplish this through their clinical practices, while also advancing pediatrics as spokespeople for the Academy and by becoming better medical communicators.

Goal Statements

In an effort to achieve its mission and vision, the COCM will focus its efforts in three overarching areas:

• Service to members and education
• Public education
• Policy development and implementation

Value Statements

• Media can transmit anti- or pro-social messages.
• Exposure to all media is an expected event for all children.
• Children learn and live in two worlds: the non-screen and the screen world.
• Excessive screen time displaces children from a myriad of real-life experiences that better promote emotional, social, physical, and cognitive development.
• Children are impacted by their environment. Although they are vulnerable to media messages, they are inherently resilient.
• Family time and communication within the family are essential elements of child health, growth, and development.
• Children live up to or down to the expectations set for them.
• The Council will seek to call attention through education and advocacy to the negative influences and promote the positive influences of media.
• As a trusted source of health information pediatricians must be part of this process.
• Pediatricians serve their patients by using all modes of media to communicate with families, the public, and legislators, and are best prepared to do so by being trained in communication skills.
• A diverse group of media-trained spokespeople advances child health.
• The Council supports pediatricians who work as authors or print or broadcast journalists.
• Council Member participation in all phases of media policy development and propagation increases the AAP effectiveness.

This Council Serves

• Pediatricians/Members at all stages​
• Children and Families