Every Day Is Christmas: Careers in Service Bring Full-Time Joy
"I always wanted to do some form of social marketing or community outreach that I could feel could impact somebody's life in a good way and that was tangible in that impact," she said last week, while trying to ignore ringing phones, e-mails and a pile of paperwork for just a few minutes. "And in a sense, I wanted to see people's lives enriched by giving of their time and resources to make a difference."
Voice of God Aids Safe Sex
Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust wanted to do a Maharashtra Condom Social Marketing Programme. The objectives of this programme were the implementation of a generic condom promotion aimed at increasing the use of condoms in all non-regular partner sex encounters. The aim was to build capacities of retailers and NGOs for effective promotion, merchandising and distribution of condoms in high-risk areas and to pioneer innovations like customised condoms…
The insight was that the educator needed to be someone whom these men would listen to without feeling that they were being preached to. We therefore chose the Maharashtrian archetype of the unofficially elected ‘Bhau’ or elder brother (who men go to for advice and listen to in times of need).
Syphilis Test Campaign May Increase Tests
A social marketing campaign urging gay and bisexual men in San Francisco to get checked for syphilis has been linked to an increase in syphilis tests.
Cartoons advocating the tests were placed in a gay newspaper, and poster-sized reproductions were posted on the streets, on bus shelters, on Webs sites and in gay bars…
"The social marketing campaign was effective in augmenting syphilis testing and increasing syphilis awareness and knowledge in the San Francisco gay and bisexual community," say the authors. "This effect might have contributed to decreased syphilis incidence in 2005."
Link to research article.
Science on a Roll in 2007
Health officials have learnt from marketing types which of us will be most susceptible to adverts — and will be using similar techniques to sell us health education. “Social marketing” is the new buzzword at the Department of Health, and 2007 will see a barrage of targeted health education initiatives. By analysing where we shop, what cars we own and what illnesses we get by postcode, boffins will be able to pinpoint who needs to cut down on the chips, and which newspapers they should advertise in to reach us.
Eric Rofes Speaks
The use of social marketing as the primary tool in HIV education and prevention has been a disaster with consequences we never imagined. While social marketing might be useful for the simple presentation of non-directive information, AIDS prevention for gay men has almost NEVER been non-directive. Instead social-marketing has become the primary way well-intentioned public health leaders have attempted to colonize the bodies and desires of gay men. To their credit, gay men have rebelled, resisted, and developed our own sex cultures and sex values that are quite contrary to most social marketing values. It’s the difference between abstinence only (“use a condom every time”) and harm reduction (providing people with information and trusting them to move forward on their own volition)…
Rocksnot's Smothering Grip Could Yet Be Loosened
Didymo, more commonly known by the delightful name rock snot, has been found in 28 South Island [New Zealand] waterways since the microscopic but fast-growing Northern Hemisphere pest was first discovered in Southland rivers in October 2004… [It] smothers invertebrates – the main food source for fish – and in some cases threatens their population…
Since didymo was first discovered in Southland in October 2004, the Government has spent almost $9 million on scientific research to find control tools and on public awareness campaigns aimed at halting its spread…
Biosecurity NZ had done many "social marketing initiatives" aimed at promoting a behaviour change toward people accepting the need for checking, cleaning and drying equipment before moving between catchments.
Copy Tobacco Industry Tactics, Minister Urges Health Chiefs
… [UK] public health minister Caroline Flint called on PCTs [primary care trusts] and local authorities to use the same tools as the industries behind the increases in obesity and heart disease.
"There’s a lot we can learn from the commercial sector in terms of how they target consumers and keep them on board. We have to think clearly about what kind of messages might appeal to one group of people that don’t have the same appeal to others," she said.
"More and more we have to be smarter in terms of our approach to public health using the skills of social marketing to better identify people who need support and make better use of our resources to achieve the results."
She said the new approach to tackling smoking would be widened to find ways of reducing what experts now call the obesity epidemic and alcohol misuse.
"That’s why our campaigns are researched and well-thought through because it’s a lot of taxpayers’ money that we are using. Although I would say it’s very cost-effective in terms of outcomes. We want those outcomes and in the department we’ve been working on how in public health we can provide the right tools to primary care trusts and others to better plan and deliver services to help stop smoking or tackle obesity, alcohol and so on," she said…
HIV Ads to be Scrutinized in 2007
…Opponents of what they see as "fear-driven campaigns" counter that gay men are taking care of themselves, pointing to recent declines in both HIV rates and syphilis in San Francisco's gay male population. They have called for a two-year moratorium on all social marketing campaigns in order to dialogue with gay men on what types of messages should be directed at the community.
AIDS activist Michael Petrelis, one of the main proponents for the moratorium, said that after 25 years of living with the AIDS epidemic and countless HIV prevention messages "there is diminishing community buy-in to the campaigns."
The debate about HIV prevention messages will receive even more scrutiny this year, when the city's HIV Prevention Planning Council is expected to discuss concerns about the campaigns at either its February or March meeting.
Tracey Packer, interim HIV prevention director at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said the HPPC's steering committee has already discussed the issue and she intends to have the entire council address what HIV prevention messages members feel are appropriate.
Packer said some of the questions that came up during the committee meeting were: what are the standards for social marketing; and, should there be a group to monitor the messages that are produced?
Nigeria: Promoting Behavioural Change the SFH Way
The Society for Family Health (SFH) may be one of the many Non-Govern-mental Organizations (NGOs) in the country that can hold its head high, following its unalloyed commitment to issues that border on public health in Nigeria…
The organization, which is one of the leading social marketing institutions in Nigeria through its campaigns, has created high awareness on HIV and AIDS and other sexually transmitted disease (STDs), amongst others. This, in turn, has yielded good results in the behavioral change of Nigerians.
…social surveys conducted in the area of sex attitudes has shown that SFH's campaigns have yielded results in creating high awareness of not only HIV and AIDS but other sexually transmitted diseases among commercial sex workers, uniform services men and transport workers, amongst others... PEP [Peer Education Plus], which was developed and tested in Nigeria through an 18-months quasi-experimental process involving a total of 26 sites spread throughout the country, has exhibited significant risk reduction behaviours compared with non-PEP sites.
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