I regularly say “Content is Queen” in respect to developing useful, content-based mind maps that communicate well to others.

I challenge any class of MPH (Masters of Public Health) students to individually take a standard set of health-medical information and express them as a mind map using an organization and style designed to make the content of the map memorable, easy to remember, and conducive to behavior change or attitude adjustment.

Here are a few areas I am considering for mind maps. The information I would use is from standardized fact sheets prepared and presented by a highly credible health-medical organization.

For example, the Alzheimer’s Association (http://www.Alz.org) has 10 facts about Alzheimer’s Disease, 7 stages of Alzheimer’s, and types of dementia on its web site. Why not have the 20 students in a graduate class each independently develop a map and then rate each other’s work on effectiveness of message, accuracy of content, accessibility to all likely readers.

The (USA) National Institute on Aging (http://www.nia.nih.gov) has many fact sheets on its site about different aspects of aging. The facts sheets might be able to be improved with mind map or other visual representations.

There are an awful lot of good mind maps to be drawn from health data and recommendations that might be awfully helpful to health education-prevention efforts. Let’s figure out how to make these maps communicate as well as possible.