ABSTRACTS

Volume 1, Number 4
October-December 1996

Vol. 1, Num 4: Contents | Editorial | Up Front | Abstracts

Predicting Risk Behaviors: Development and Validation of a Diagnostic Scale
    K. Witte, K.A. Cameron, J.K. McKeon, J.M. Berkowitz

The goal of this article is to develop and validate a Risk Behavior Diagnosis (RBD) scale that can be used by health care providers and practitioners interested in promoting healthy behaviors. Theoretically guided by the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) (a fear appeal theory), the RBD scale was designed to work in conjunction with an easy-to-use formula to determine which types of health risk messages would be most appropriate for a given individual or audience. Because some health risk messages promote behavior change, and others backfire, this type of scale offers guidance to practitioners on how to develop the best persuasive message possible to motivate healthy behaviors. The results of the study demonstrated the RBD scale has a high degree of content, construct, and predictive validity. Specific examples and practical suggestions are offered to facilitate use of the scale for health practitioners.

Social Marketing and Diffusion-Based Strategies for Communicating with Unique Populations: HIV Prevention in San Francisco
    J.W. Dearing, E.M. Rogers, G. Meyer, M.K. Casey, N. Rao, S. Campo, & G. M. Henderson

We conducted a two-year investigation to learn the extent to which strategies based on social marketing and diffusion of innovations concepts are used in preventive health communication with unique (highly ostracized) populations. From the population of 49 organizations in San Francisco that operate HIV prevention programs (N=100), programs that mist highly target unique populations were surveyed. Personal interviews were then conducted with 38 staff leaders who operate the relatively most, and relatively least, effective prevention programs. Audio tapes and transcripts were content analyzed to identify the strategies used by program staff. Results suggest that strategies based on social marketing concepts are more prevalent than are strategies based on the diffusion of innovations in San Francisco's HIV prevention programs. Program staff use strategies to change behavior that are easy to conceptualize: Channels of communication, personnel management, community demographics, and program operating procedures. More effective programs are characterized by emphasis on homophily, audience segmentation, and compatibility-based strategies, and interorganizational collaboration. We conclude that HIV prevention programs for unique populations can be culturally sensitive through the combined use of strategies based on the concepts of homophily, audience segmentation, and the subconcept of compatibility.

Values and Justifications in Health Communication Interventions: An Analytic Framework
    N. Guttman

A conceptual framework for analyzing health communication interventions is presented as a systematic approach to identify values and justifications embedded in major facets of the communication intervention: the definition of the problem, the strategies adopted, the intervention stakeholders or its targeted populations, and the evaluation of the program. although values and ethical concerns are embedded in all facets of health communication interventions, they are often left unexamined, or are taken for granted by practitioners and intervention populations (policy makers and the research who analyze, evaluated, or help design and implement them). The development, adaptation, and application of this framework can serve three inter-related purposes: (1) to provide constructs and a systematic approach to examine the design and implementation of interventions from a normative perspective, (2) to contribute to a theoretical perspective on health interventions as a social change phenomenon, and (3) to provide additional criteria for program evaluation and policy-making.

FORUM

Tobacco: Co-opting Our Public Health
    M.D. Basil

Communication is a tool that can be used to promote public health. The case of tobacco illustrates, however, that we can only advocate behavior change, not insure it. In this case, the tobacco industry has focused on individual- and societal-level actions that effectively sabotage anti-smoking campaigns. Health communication researchers should pay special attention to how politics is subverted, the principle of freedom of speech is abused, message framing encourages the continued marketing of cigarettes, and tobacco advertising swamps public health messages both in quantity and style. The field of health communication should do two things to help counter this campaign. First, we should make a concerted effort to refute the arguments offered by the tobacco companies. Second, we should continue to take action on four levels -- as individuals, as responsible citizens, in support of organizations, and to create social changes that will reduce the use of tobacco.

BOOK REVIEW

Alan R. Andreasen. Marketing Social Change.
Reviewed by Mary Joyce, D.B.A.