This week’s readings focused on the logistics of crafting an effective health communication campaign, the different elements to consider, and an example of persuasion-based communication conducted in rural Bangladesh.
Answer those questions and reply to the discussion post reply:
Answer those questions
Do you think negative or positive appeals in health messaging are more effective? Is there one you prefer over the other, or a combination? Why?
Do you find that the way content is presented is more influential than the information itself? Why do you think that is?
Can you think of an example where a health communication campaign had unintended consequences?
Reply to this discussion post:
To answer the professor’s questions first, the benefits of using health communication to influence behavior change is that you are able to spread the information to such a large audience. Unlike meeting with individuals to discuss behavior change, if you are able to find a way to get the word out more broadly such as on billboards or in the news or on the radio, you can reach more individuals. The problem with this is that it is not tailored for each individual and so may not be effective. We all have different backgrounds and different reasons for what we do and therefore a standard “one-size-fits-all” approach may not work. Another thing to consider, as the professor brought up, is that although there is a message out there, that does not mean everyone is able to achieve what is asked of them. The Covid vaccine as she said is a great example. Another that we see often times is what we should eat to have a healthy diet, but if people don’t have the money for it or the access, they won’t be able to eat what they “should”. So although the message is out there, it doesn’t physically help the individual to achieve that goal.
As for the persuasion tactics I see in the media, many of them are more negative appeals as wrote about in the Developing Effective Media Campaigns For Health Promotion (Silk, Atkin, & Salmon). Examples of this are with smoking and vaping, showing what could happen if people continue to do so. Another one I often see are Influential Source Messengers often times with either doctors or celebrities. Personally I do not like the approach of using celebrities and I do not find it effective, but I believe it is for the general public. Doctors or professionals, in my opinion, are more trustworthy and I would often follow their advice for online accounts on instagram or from posts on the internet. As for the negative appeal, I do think these are helpful in the sense that it draws awareness to what could happen, but I do not think it is enough to actually get someone to change.
That brings me into Kali’s questions, the first being if I prefer a positive or negative appeal, or both. Personally, I like both. I think having just one or the other isn’t as effective as showing the consequences and then expressing how you can change that to actually improve your health. If it is solely negative people try to avoid them and if it is solely positive people don’t often listen because it doesn’t seem as though it concerns them. This is a very personalized belief and may not be the same for everyone!
I do think that the way information is presented is often times more influential than the information presented. In other classes, we have had to learn how to present information in a way that will engage the audience. I think this alone says something about what is more influential. You can have the most interesting information, but if you are monotone and don’t have something that engages the audience right away, it will be useless.
The only health campaigns I can think of that have had negative consequences are when discussing fad diets and weight loss. These may not be things ran all over the news (sometimes weight loss is), but they still are spread through magazines and social media. There are plenty of “healthy” diets that are pushed on people, especially women that can mess up so much including metabolism, self imagine, and hormones and menstruation.
References:
Silk, K. J., Atkin, C. K., & Salmon, C. T. (2011). Developing Effective Media Campaigns for
Health Promotion. In The Routledge handbook of health communication (pp. 230-246). Routledge.
Wable Grandner, G., Rasmussen, K. M., Dickin, K. L., Menon, P., Yeh, T., & Hoddinott, J.
(2022). Storytelling for persuasion: Insights from community health workers on how they engage family members to improve adoption of recommended maternal nutrition and breastfeeding behaviours in rural Bangladesh. Maternal and Child Nutrition, 18(4), e13408–e13408. https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13408Links to an external site.Links to an external site.
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