Two articles appear in this week's British Medical Journal advocating for the expanded use of social marketing by doctors and other health professionals.
The first article by Doug Evans reviews the basic tenets of social marketing, but unfortunately relies of mass communication efforts to illustrate the approach and devotes little attention to other elements of the marketing mix. His conclusion for medical practitioners:
This brief overview indicates that social marketing practices can be useful in healthcare practice. Firstly, during social marketing campaigns, such as antismoking campaigns, practitioners should reinforce media messages through brief counselling. Secondly, practitioners can make a valuable contribution by providing another communication channel to reach the target audience. Finally, because practitioners are a trusted source of health information, their reinforcement of social marketing messages adds value beyond the effects of mass communication.
Gerard Hastings and Laura McDermott note that social marketing is more than an advertising campaign and focus on its role in promoting changes in public policy.
Ideas like patient orientation, multifaceted interventions, strategic planning, and stakeholder marketing provide a useful way of thinking about how to change behaviour. They also sit comfortably alongside current views on patient centred health care and reinforce the role of doctors and health professionals in health improvement. In short, social marketing can help you do what you currently do better. And it works.
Both papers focus on the health practitioner audience and are very clear in their assertions and the documentation for the efficacy of the social marketing approach to achieve population behavior change. Is JAMA next?
Technorati Tags: British Medical Journal, Health Education, Mass Media Campaigns, Public Policy, Social Marketing
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