Kids & Family
West Deptford Student Wins NJ Health Prevention Video Contest
Ryan Zuzulock's video short about HPV vaccinations won him a Kindle Fire and Amazon gift card while helping spread an important health message.
A West Deptford teenager whose short video on the human papilloma virus will be used to help raise awareness about the importance of teen vaccinations is the grand prize winner of a statewide health contest.
West Deptford High School freshman Ryan Zuzulock, 14, will take home a Kindle Fire and $50 Amazon gift card for his winning entry in the Protect Me With 3 health campaign.
"The goal of the campaign was to raise awareness about disease prevention among these students," said PR worker Marianne Altadonna on behalf of the Partnership for Child and Maternal Health of Northern New Jersey, which sponsored the contest.
Students were asked to come up with a 30-second video discussing disease facts and the call for prevention. Once the finalists were selected, the public voted on the winner.
The contest was co-sponsored by the New Jersey Department of Health as an effort to raise awareness of its Immunization Information System, a health database that tracks public vaccinations.
Among those entrants that met the conditions of the contest, Altadonna said that Zuzulock's definitely stood out.
"His video was excellent," she said. "He definitely spoke very clearly, he used the right kind of images, he had the right information on there. It was very creative on his part in particular, the way he put it all together."
The contest gave students a chance to express their creativity while getting out the health message that they should stay current on their vaccinations, Altadonna said.
That's become a tricky topic in recent years, as anti-vaccine camps have become more organized and vocal in the Information Age.
"I think it's definitely important for [the public] to get the right kind of information," Altadonna said.
"The Internet can be informative but it can be dangerous as well. Talk to your doctor, who's going to be the most important resource. A lot of these diseases, including...whooping cough and HPV, are preventable," she said.
Click above to watch Zuzulock's winning video.
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