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Context: Health communication campaigns including mass media and health-related product distribution have been used to reduce mortality and morbidity through behavior change. The intervention is defined as having two core components reflecting two social marketing principles: (1) promoting behavior change through multiple communication channels, one being mass media, and (2) distributing a free or reduced-price product that facilitates adoption and maintenance of healthy behavior change, sustains cessation of harmful behaviors, or protects against behavior-related disease or injury., Evidence Acquisition: Using methods previously developed for the Community Guide, a systematic review (search period, January 1980-December 2009) was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of health communication campaigns that use multiple channels, including mass media, and distribute health-related products. The primary outcome of interest was use of distributed health-related products., Evidence Synthesis: Twenty-two studies that met Community Guide quality criteria were analyzed in 2010. Most studies showed favorable behavior change effects on health-related product use (a median increase of 8.4 percentage points). By product category, median increases in desired behaviors ranged from 4.0 percentage points for condom promotion and distribution campaigns to 10.0 percentage points for smoking-cessation campaigns., Conclusions: Health communication campaigns that combine mass media and other communication channels with distribution of free or reduced-price health-related products are effective in improving healthy behaviors. This intervention is expected to be applicable across U.S. demographic groups, with appropriate population targeting. The ability to draw more specific conclusions about other important social marketing practices is constrained by limited reporting of intervention components and characteristics., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Background: Two of the major goals of tobacco prevention and control activities are to change social norms and influence policy. The news media can play an important role for achieving both goals., Methods: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office on Smoking and Health created a surveillance system to track tobacco stories in the news media beginning in 2004. The system was developed based on reviewing lessons from previous news media tracking efforts, including defining the purpose of the system, using a parsimonious approach to sample media outlets, and attending to data-quality issues. Tobacco news stories were systematically identified and coded from ten newspapers, four news wire services, and seven national television networks., Results: Findings indicated that from January 2004 through June 2005, tobacco-related stories were in selected major newspapers virtually every day. More than 70% of all newspaper stories contained one of only three main story themes: policy or regulation (31.0%), legal issues (23.8%), or health effects or statistics (18.1%). Television news stories on tobacco were much less common, but increased substantially during the first 6 months of 2005 compared to 2004. Health effects/statistics (50.5%) were the dominant theme for television, with policy/regulation a distant second (19.5%)., Conclusions: Tobacco-related media coverage can be systematically tracked and characterized. These findings may have value to public health researchers and policymakers who wish to evaluate efforts to curb tobacco-related disease.

Background: Increasing rates of obesity in the population have made prevention a high public health priority. Policy strategies for curtailing obesity have been recommended, yet there has been little research on the degree of public support for policy-level interventions., Methods: Participants for this study included 1139 respondents who were surveyed as part of the Research Triangle Institute Obesity Telephone Survey conducted in September 2004. Participants were asked to indicate to what degree they favor specific healthcare and work policy strategies for treating and preventing adult obesity. Participants were also asked about their beliefs regarding the causes of obesity., Results: A majority (85%) favored a policy change strategy that offered employers tax breaks if they provided adequate exercise facilities in the workplace. Seventy-three percent favored a move by healthcare companies to require obesity treatment and prevention. The same proportion (72%) favored beneficiary discounts by employers or healthcare companies to motivate individuals to maintain or move toward a healthy weight. Majorities endorsed a lack of willpower and the cost of healthy food as causes. Nearly two thirds did not believe genes or lack of knowledge was related to obesity in society, and the sample was split with regard to the belief that obesity is caused by society., Conclusions: The findings suggest that there is strong support for healthcare and employment policies in obesity prevention and treatment. These findings may be important to policymakers in developing population-based strategies to prevent obesity.

Background: Obesity has been identified as an epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rates of unhealthy body weight among children and adolescents have tripled since the 1980s to 15%. Media coverage of obesity has also increased, and the public is now highly aware of obesity-related health threats facing adults and children., Methods: RTI International sponsored a representative survey of U.S. households (n =1047) that included detailed questions about perceptions of the severity, causes, and public support for specific intervention strategies to combat childhood obesity. Logistic regressions were calculated to examine differences in support by sociodemographic characteristics., Results: Respondents considered childhood obesity to be as serious as other major childhood health threats, such as tobacco use and violence, but not as serious as drug abuse. They supported most school-, community-, and media-based strategies that involved offering health information, limiting unhealthy food promotion, and increasing healthy nutrition and physical activity choices, but were generally opposed to regulatory and tax- or cost-based interventions. Logistic regressions revealed significantly greater support for some interventions among highly educated individuals and women, and lower support among parents with children at home., Conclusions: This study demonstrates that there is strong public support for interventions aimed at reducing overweight and obesity among children and adolescents. It also shows specific school, community, and media interventions that the public supports and opposes, and what consequences the public will accept in combating childhood obesity. These findings can help policymakers and public health professionals design and implement appropriate interventions.