Use of Mass Media Campaigns to Change Health Behavior

According to the abstract of this article from The Lancet: Mass media campaigns are widely used to passively expose high proportions of large populations to messages through routine uses of existing media, such as television, radio, and newspapers. Such campaigns frequently compete with factors, such as pervasive product marketing, powerful social norms, and behaviors driven by addiction or habit. In this review, the authors discuss the outcomes of mass media campaigns in the context of various health-risk behaviors (e.g., use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs; heart disease risk factors; sex-related behaviors; road safety; cancer screening and prevention; child survival; and organ or blood donation). The authors conclude that mass media campaigns can produce positive changes or prevent negative changes in health-related behaviors across large populations especially when combined with required services and products, community-based programs, and policies that support behavior change. They propose areas for improvement, such as investment in longer better-funded campaigns to achieve adequate population exposure to media messages."