Qualitative developmental research among low income African American adults to inform a social marketing campaign for walking

Abstract

BackgroundThis study describes the development of a social marketing campaign for increasing walking in a low income, high crime community as part of the Positive Action for Today’s Health (PATH) trial.MethodsFocus groups were conducted with 52 African American adults (ages 18 to 65 yrs), from two underserved communities to develop themes for a social marketing campaign to promote walking. Participants responded to questions concerning social marketing principles related to product, price, place, promotion, and positioning for increasing neighbourhood walking.ResultsFocus group data informed the development of the campaign objectives that were derived from the “5 Ps” to promote physical and mental health, social connectedness, safety, and confidence in walking regularly. Focus group themes indicated that physical and mental health benefits of walking were important motivators. Walking for social reasons was also important for overcoming barriers to walking. Police support from trusted officers while walking was also essential to promoting safety for walking. Print materials were developed by the steering committee, with a 12-month calendar and door hangers delivered to residents’ homes to invite them to walk. Pride Stride walks empowered community walkers to serve as peer leaders for special walking events to engage new walkers.ConclusionsEssential elements for developing culturally tailored social marketing interventions for promoting walking in underserved communities are outlined for future researchers.

“My hair or my health:” Overcoming barriers to physical activity in African American women with a focus on hairstyle-related factors

“…We identified several major sociocultural barrier themes including hairstyle maintenance burdens of perspiration, sociocultural norms for hairstyle presentability, and environmental drying effects on AA hair. The sociocultural themes were described further with representative quotations separated by exercise strata (Table 2); we also included selected quotations from non-sociocultural categories, but we did not describe these further in the narrative as they have been described more fully elsewhere (Harley et al, 2009; Harley et al, 2014; Baruth et al, 2014; Wilson et al, 2013; Orzech et al, 2013). …”

“…To optimize the potential success of future interventions, counseling and other program elements should be tailored to the unique barriers and facilitators of each individual (Kreuter and Wray, 2003) — general factors such as promoting enjoyable physical activity, social support, and overcoming lack of self-discipline should be assessed and addressed (Harley et al, 2009; Harley et al, 2014; Baruth et al, 2014; Wilson et al, 2013; Orzech et al, 2013; Pekmezi et al, 2013). In addition, sociocultural factors, such as time barriers to hairstyle maintenance after physical activity, should be assessed and addressed.…”

“…To inform future interventions to increase physical activity among AA women, we sought to identify physical activity barriers and facilitators in AA women with a focus on whether and why sociocultural hairstyle maintenance factors influenced physical activity behavior. We also sought to describe the relative frequency of hairstyle maintenance barriers compared with more general barriers that have been observed in AA women, such as lack of time, child care needs, access to safe and affordable methods to be active, lack of enjoyment, and fear of injury (Harley et al, 2009; Harley et al, 2014; Baruth et al, 2014; Wilson et al, 2013; Orzech et al, 2013). …”

Examining the Effectiveness of Physical Activity on Mental Health among Bosnian Refugees: A Pilot Study

“…The four P concepts of Product, Price, Place, and Promotion in social marketing were well-integrated into the Campaign. Both baseline and follow-up data were collected to evaluate the effectiveness of the Campaign [42]. Effectiveness appeared to be very favorable after one-year, two-year, and four-year follow-up.…”

“…Therefore, future physical activity interventions for Bosnian communities may consider being enhanced by applying more multidisciplinary motivational strategies in order to further address the cultural perspectives of and barriers to physical activity, improve the effectiveness of physical activity interventions, and sustain long-term physical activity among the community members. These strategies include, such as (1) delivering a community-based social marketing campaign to increase awareness and change social norms of the relationship between physical activity and health and how to properly conduct physical activity; Social marketing/mass media campaigns have been proven to be general effective to promote physical activity [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. For instance, in 2002, CDC launched a nationally representative social marketing campaign (VERB TM ) to promote physical activity among multiethnic youth aged nine to 13 years old as the primary targeting population and their parents, teachers, and other supporting parties as the secondary targeting population within nine-selected communities in the U.S. Commercial media marketing strategies were heavily adopted through using TV, radio, print in order to sell the product, being physical active, to the youth and the ones who had a significant impact on them.…”