The impact of market segmentation and social marketing on uptake of preventive programmes: the example of voluntary medical male circumcision. A literature review

Abstract

Background: The business world has long recognized the power of defining discrete audiences within a target population. However, market segmentation’s full potential has not been applied to the public health context. While some broad elements of market segmentation (e.g., age, geography) are considered, a nuanced look at behavioural and psychographic segmentation, which could greatly enhance the possibility of lasting behaviour change, is often missing. Segmentation, and the associated mindset which acknowledges the multi-dimensional differences between people, allows service providers, implementers, policymakers, and government officials to target initiatives and lead to a greater likelihood of lasting behavioural change. This paper investigates what segmentation is, how it has been applied to voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC), how it can be applied in development, and the challenges in both measuring and adopting segmentation as part of program design. Methods: We performed a detailed search of peer-reviewed literature using PubMed, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and the abstract directories of the International AIDS Society (IAS) published between January 2015 and September 2018. We also accessed articles from business databases such as the Harvard Business Review. Results: Results from a VMMC-focused intervention that successfully designed and delivered segmentation-based programs in two countries demonstrated that it is possible to adapt private sector approaches. However, within the sector of global development that is most familiar with segmentation, these efforts rarely go beyond basic demographic segments. Conclusions: Existing published material tends not to measure the impact of segmentation itself, but the impact of the intervention to which segmentation was applied, which makes it challenging for the development sector to invest in the approach without evidence that it works. Nonetheless, the experiences of segmentation and demand creation for VMMC do highlight the opportunity for better integrating this approach in HIV prevention and in global development and measurement initiatives.

HIV vulnerability among adolescent girls and young women: a multi-country latent class analysis approach

“…Our study uses the segmentation approach (Sgaier et al 2018) to identify HIV vulnerability profiles for AGYW living in sub-Saharan Africa. While segmentation approaches have long been used in business and marketing fields, their application in global public health efforts remains limited (Gomez et al 2018). Notable exceptions include a study in Malawi that examined HIV risk perception and self-efficacy dimensions to better inform the development of tailored HIV prevention messages to different subgroups of men and women (Rimal et al 2009), work in Zambia and Zimbabwe on understanding the underlying drivers for men's decisions for voluntary medical male circumcision, and work in Niger around developing profiles of women's willingness to adopt family planning (Camber Collective 2015; Dalglish et al 2018).…”

Targeting interventions for HIV testing and treatment uptake: An attitudinal and behavioural segmentation of men aged 20–34 in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, South Africa

“…Segmentations may be based on demographic, geographic, psychographic or behavioural characteristics of the target population [22]. Despite difficulties in measuring the impact of these approaches, there is evidence to suggest that psycho-behavioural segmentations, which incorporate data on motivations, behaviours and beliefs, result in more homogeneous (and therefore recognisable and useful) segments than a purely demographic analysis [23][24][25].…”

“…In public health, segmentation has been applied to understand perceptions of HIV risk in Malawi, barriers to VMMC in Zambia and Zimbabwe, and needs and preferences for family planning technology in Niger [26][27][28]. However, it has been noted that these methods are used relatively rarely to target health interventions [22,25].…”

Factors Affecting Engagement in Web-Based Health Care Patient Information: Narrative Review of the Literature

“…The personalization of health care content may have bearing on the issue of engagement. Studies have shown that it is possible to segment the population according to the likelihood of responding to health care messages [ 74 , 75 ]. Although our framework provides the best evidence available relating to engagement with web-based content, the holy grail may lie in developing further the field of psychographics for health care.…”