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Although diabetes-related knowledge has reached high levels, stagnant perceived risk suggests people at risk are not applying this knowledge to themselves. Future surveys are planned to include additional, specific questions to capture people's movement toward behavior change and to identify where strategic efforts and educational interventions can help promote improved behaviors.

In this qualitative, experiential study, 300 members of the database of WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women With Heart Disease completed an online survey about hypertension diagnosis and treatment, patient education, and perceptions of this and related conditions. Based on the findings from the survey, characteristics of the prototypical journey were identified. To the extent to which the surveyed WomenHeart members represent typical experiences, this survey provides insights into common hurdles women encounter in their journey throughout the hypertension diagnosis and treatment process. Results of this study suggest the need for a patient-centric approach to hypertension management and to implement programs with the intention of comprehensively assessing and meeting individual needs. Further studies would be of value to expand on patients' journeys in the management of hypertension and identify the types of products, services, and programming that most effectively support treatment adherence and achievement of optimal blood pressure control. J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich). 2013;15:532-541. ª2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.While hypertension is more common in men than in premenopausal women, 1,2 after the onset of menopause, hypertension rates become higher in women than in age-matched men. It is estimated that >40% of postmenopausal women in the United States will develop hypertension and >75% of women older than 70 years are hypertensive.2-4 The high prevalence of postmenopausal hypertension is concerning given the associated increased risk of adverse cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and renal outcomes. 5 According to the American Heart Association Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics-2013 Update, high blood pressure (BP) is associated with shorter overall life expectancy, shorter life expectancy free of cardiovascular disease, more years lived with cardiovascular disease, and increased risks of ischemic stroke and intracranial hemorrhage, compared with normal BP.6 Hypertension causes more than 61,000 deaths annually, including more than 34,000 women.6 For women, in particular, age-adjusted mortality rates associated with BP-related disease have increased in recent years. 7,8 More than 1 of every 3 adult women in the United States currently has some form of cardiovascular disease and, since 1984, more women than men have died of cardiovascular disease. 3Data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) indicate that although hypertension awareness, treatment, and control rates have increased significantly for both men and women in recent years, 9 control rates are lower in women than in men, 10 with less than half of postmenopausal women having adequate BP control.2,11 These findings have been observed despite the fact that women are more likely than men to have their BP checked and adhere to their BP medications, which suggests that women may not be treated as aggressively for hypertension compared with their male counterparts and/or the mechanisms contributing to postmenopausal hypertens...

Since the 1970s, the federal government has spearheaded major national education programs to reduce the burden of chronic diseases in the United States. These prevention and disease management programs communicate critical information to the public, those affected by the disease, and health care providers. The National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP), the leading federal program on diabetes sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), uses primary and secondary quantitative data and qualitative audience research to guide program planning and evaluation. Since 2006, the NDEP has filled the gaps in existing quantitative data sources by conducting its own population-based survey, the NDEP National Diabetes Survey (NNDS). The NNDS is conducted every 2–3 years and tracks changes in knowledge, attitudes and practice indicators in key target audiences. This article describes how the NDEP has used the NNDS as a key component of its evaluation framework and how it applies the survey results for strategic planning and program improvement. The NDEP's use of the NNDS illustrates how a program evaluation framework that includes periodic population-based surveys can serve as an evaluation model for similar national health education programs.

A few issues ago, Bill Smith (2009) and Mike Rothschild (2009) expressed concerns about how the marketing mix variable product is conceptualized in social marketing. They both noted that the increasingly common practice of defining product as the behavior we wish to change is conceptually flawed and narrows how we think about solutions. If behavior is our product, we tend to narrowly focus on how to convince individuals to engage in that behavior, which often leads to an overreliance on communication and educational approaches. We may not consider how new or improved products or services, pricing, or distribution may enable or facilitate our desired behavior change. Bill and Mike offered alternative conceptualizations of product: a tool for behavior change (Smith, 2009) or a bundle of benefits an individual receives in exchange for engaging in a behavior or series of behaviors (Rothschild, 2009).I would like to encourage us to take an equally thoughtful look at place, which has long been the most overlooked and misunderstood P in social marketing. Although I continually hope we have moved beyond the days when people either dismissed place as irrelevant to social marketing or thought it referred to media channels, I still see many social marketing efforts that clearly overlooked the possibilities and constraints presented by place. DefinitionsLet's start by considering some definitions of place. The first is from a commercial marketing text; the latter two from social marketing texts.