The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Communications (COCOM) recognizes that positive and negative messages communicated to and about children from the media, parents, health professionals, schools, and communities impact children’s health and well-being. Therefore, COCOM’s mission is to educate AAP members as well as children, adolescents, and those who care for them, about messages regarding and targeting youth. Since those messages convey to children a perception of their culture and what is expected of them, the committee will – through research, collaboration, advocacy and innovation – evaluate, teach and further messages that promote healthy and successful youth development while reducing health risk.

The origins of the American Academy of Pediatrics? Committee on Communications (COCOM) date back to 1951 when the AAP Constitution underwent its first major review and included,

COCOM began as the Committee on Communications and Public Information in 1970, when an explosion in the number of medical specialists, family physicians and nurse practitioners greatly increased competition for patients. This resulted in a ground swell for a formal campaign to enhance the image of pediatrics to the public. The AAP responded by developing programs and materials that would accomplish this, including the "Speak Up For Children" campaign in 1978.

In 1982, the AAP hired a public relations agency to build public awareness via the "New Age for Pediatrics" campaign, designed to expand the concept of pediatricians being more than "baby doctors." This same year the Task Force on the Promotion of Pediatrics was created. In 1984, the AAP developed its own in-house capabilities to handle public and media relations, and the Task Force evolved into the Provisional Committee on Communications. The Committee on Communications was appointed in 1987. Following the AAP?s reorganization in 1998, the Committee on Communications changed its name to the Committee on Public Education to describe its role in the broader field of health education. Then in 2004, the Committee returned to the name Committee on Communications as the mission of the group shifted to encompass more communications-related activities.

• AAP Holroyd-Sherry Award

Articles and Testimony

• No Child Left Inside: Reconnecting Kids with the Outdoors, AAP testimony during a joint hearing before the US House of Representatives Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, and Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans by Kenneth Ginsburg, MD, MS Ed, FAAP (May 24, 2007)
• Children's Advocates Reach Agreement With Broadcast and Cable Industry Over Kids' Digital TV Rules
  (December 15, 2005)

COCOM develops policy to educate pediatricians and the public about the impact of media on children and adolescents; oversees communications efforts to increase public awareness of pediatricians in the provision of optimal child health care; leads professional education initiatives related to public education; recommends topics and monitors communications efforts for the Media Matters campaign and the Media Resource Team initiative and selects the recipient of the Holroyd-Sherry Award for excellence in media and child and adolescent health.

The committee has liaisons with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychological Association.

AAP Policy Statements Authored by the Committee:

• Children, Adolescents, and Advertising
• Children, Adolescents, and Television
• Media Violence
• Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media
• Media Education

AAP members with questions about current committee projects, statements and activities can contact committee staff by sending an e-mail message to COCOM@aap.org.