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Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a major public health challenge. Although theoretically informed public health campaigns are more effective for changing behaviour, there is little evidence of their use when campaigns are commissioned to the commercial sector. This study describes the implementation of the COM-B model to a sexual health campaign that brought together expertise from academics, sexual healthcare, and marketing and creative professionals. Insights were gathered following a review of the relevant academic literature. Barriers and facilitators to condom use and STI testing were explored with the use of the COM-B model and the Behaviour Change Wheel in a workshop attended by academics, behavioural scientists, healthcare experts and creative designers. Feedback on the creative execution of the campaign was obtained from healthcare experts and via surveys. Barriers to psychological capability, automatic and reflective motivation, and social opportunity were identified as targets for the campaign, and creative solutions to these barriers were collaboratively devised. The final sexual health campaign was rated positively in its ability to change attitudes and intentions regarding the use of condoms and STI testing. This study describes the implementation of the COM-B model of behaviour change to a public sexual health campaign that brought together academics, public and commercial sector expertise. The barriers and facilitators identified in this collaborative process represent potential targets for future public health communication campaigns.

In the context of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, female medical staff constituted a large proportion of frontline healthcare workers in China, with 50% of doctors and over 90% of nurses being women. In this paper, we aim to examine how these medical workers were represented at the start of the pandemic in online news reports posted on one of China’s most popular social media platforms, Weibo. In the paper, we draw upon corpus-based critical discourse analysis, comparing representations of female medical workers to those of medical workers in general. We observe that not only are female medical workers portrayed through a predominantly gendered lens, but they are also subordinated to the needs of the state. We consider the role played by state-controlled media in regulating the position of (working) women in society and probe into rhetorical means through which this is achieved.