1986 – HEALTH PROMOTION:
”The process of enabling
people to increase control
over, and to improve their
health”
The idea is that you can persuade people to
act in certain ways – not an easy task though.
What motivates people?
Well it differes according to age, sex, socioeconomic class, life goals etc.
One to one contact is an effective way – but
what about changing whole populations?
 Health
education programmes – raise
awareness.
 Public health campaigns to change beliefs,
attitudes, and motivation.
 Changing the wider determinants of health
(e.g. changing the physical environment)
 Public or private health services (e.g. family
doctors, pharmacies, smoking cessation
clinics).
 Polical activities (e.g. legislation, setting
standards for food available, taxes)
Physical activity
(83%)
Increasing fruit and
veg. Consumption
(55%)
Decreasing
television viewing
time (38%)
Calories vs exercise
(55%)
Oh, and this supports that health promotion is now often
based on research findings.
Alcohol problems in Scotland:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/61
07844.stm
Celebrities get payed to carry health promotion
messages:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article1111670/Anger-NHS-pays-90-000-celebritiespublic-health-ad-campaigns.html
Or a youtube cliphttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqJr0WWDzwo
Health campaigns are
often criticised for
not working.
Holm (2002 – Danish
survey on food habits)
replies: they are, but
they cannot stand
alone – they must be
an integral part of the
entire health
promotion project.
Holm claims that it needs to be based on people’s
daily life in order to be effective – and refers to
the Danish rye bread sandwich – vs. Butter (7-40%
from 1985 to 2001).
Shows that behaviour CAN be changed.
A Swedish equivalent – ”6-8 skivor om dagen” (this
was a commercial though – not commonly known…)
Holm also claims that there is a long-term effect
of all the campaigns in Denmark – like ”30 minutes
of fitness every day”
Persuasive communication includes:
 The source must be credible (trustworthy or
an expert)
 The audience should determine how the
message is framed
 The message should be short, direct and
explicit (Sepstrup, 1999)
 Attitude change is more likely to last if the
target group has participated in it actively
(and not passively).
Aims: prevent teen
smoking by changing
attitudes (1) and
encouraging them to
form groups to spread
the message forwards
themselves (2).



MASSIVE ADVERTISING
DRIVE WITH
COMMERCIALS AND
POSTERS
SPONSORSHIPS
ENCOURAGEMENT TO
WORK PROACTIVE VS
THE INDUSTRY
Means of survey: telephone surveys on target audience
measuring effect, awareness and attitudes.
Middle- and high-school teenagers defined as ”current
smokers” went down from 19.4 % to 8%
And the non-smoking kids said that they had been
influenced by the campaign (Evaluation please?)
Sly – 2002 carried out a survey 22 months later to
investigate if the ads had had an effect on attitude
change and found that the exposure to ads with the key
message theme predicted that they had remained a
non-smoker.
Implications: campaigns CAN be effective.