The effectiveness of social marketing interventions for health improvement: What's the evidence?

Abstract

Methodology/Approach: Review of systematic reviews and primary studies using prespecified search and inclusion criteria. Social marketing interventions were defined as those which adopted specified social marketing principles in their development and implementation.Findings: A total of 54 interventions met the inclusion criteria. There was evidence that interventions adopting social marketing principles could be effective across a range of behaviours, with a range of target groups, in different settings, and can influence policy and professional practice as well as individuals.Research limitations/implications: As this was a systematic review, the quality of included studies was reasonable and many were RCTs. However, many of the multi-component studies reported overall results only and research designs did not allow for the efficacy of different components to be compared. When reviewing social marketing effectiveness it is 3 important not to rely solely on the 'label' as social marketing is often misrepresented; there is a need for social marketers to clearly define their approach.Practical implications: The review shows that social marketing can form an effective framework for behaviour change interventions and can provide a useful 'toolkit' for organisations that are trying to change health behaviours.Originality/Value: The research described in this paper represents one of the few systematic examinations of social marketing effectiveness and is based on a clear definition of 'social marketing'. It highlights both social marketing's potential to achieve change in different behavioural contexts and its ability to work at individual, environmental and wider policy levels.

Strategies to improve health coverage and narrow the equity gap in child survival, health, and nutrition

“…Reviews that examined the eff ects of social marketing showed positive eff ects on promotion of awareness and use of insecticide-treated nets 23 and adop tion of recom mended practices for dengue pre vention. 24 However, the studies examined were of low quality.…”

Sugars and health: a review of current evidence and future policy

“…Providing effective communication materials is not as easy as it sounds and is unlikely to 223 bring about behaviour change in isolation although it is often a pre-requisite to more intensive of public health behaviours (40) . In the UK the Change 4 Life programme engages the public to 230 encourage them to look at their diet and levels of physical activity and make changes to 231 improve their health (41) .…”

“…In the UK, sugar cane was imported from around 1300 and sugar beet in the 1700s but it was 39 the automation of the process of extracting sugars in the 1900s that brought about huge 40 change. Development into a modern and efficient sector led to sugar becoming cheap and 41 plentiful from that time (1) and sugar consumption grew exponentially.…”

Hand Hygiene

“…732,802,853,872,[1142][1143][1144][1145] McGuckin and colleagues reported an increase in hand hygiene compliance and alcohol-based hand rub use by using "authority figures" as role models for empowerment. 853 The medical director, nurse manager, director of nursing, and infection control professional dedicated to the medical/surgical ICU recorded short audio messages about hand hygiene, such as "we want 100% compliance with hand hygiene in our ICU" and "remember to use sanitizer", that were broadcast at randomly timed intervals from the announcement speakers at the nurses' station.…”