Elsevier

Preventive Medicine

Volume 17, Issue 5, September 1988, Pages 531-558
Preventive Medicine

Development of a smoking prevention mass media program using diagnostic and formative research

https://doi.org/10.1016/0091-7435(88)90051-5Get rights and content

Abstract

The process of developing a mass media campaign to prevent smoking among adolescents is described in detail. This campaign supplements a school smoking prevention program and shares educational objectives with the school program but is otherwise independent. It comprises various television and radio 30- and 60-sec “spot” messages. The campaign development process includes identifying educational objectives and strategies for appealing to young people; conducting diagnostic surveys and focus groups to determine target audience interests and perceptions about smoking and media content; suggesting approaches to producers to create preliminary television and radio messages for testing; conducting formative pretests with target groups to select optimal messages and suggest improvements to those messages; producing final messages for media presentation; and developing a media exposure plan to place messages in local media at optimal times for reception by target audiences. The media campaign is being evaluated in a 5-year project with 5,500 adolescents in four communities to determine the additional effect of mass media over a school program alone in preventing smoking.

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  • Cited by (0)

    Supported by PHS Grant 1 RO1 CA38395-01 awarded by the National Cancer Institute, DHHS, and PHS Grant 17292 awarded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, DHHS.

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