Health Communication Campaigns and Their Impact on Behavior

Abstract 

The objective is to review the evidence for the effectiveness of health communication campaigns to inform future nutrition campaigns. The review drew on existing meta-analyses and other literature. The average health campaign affects the intervention community by about 5 percentage points, and nutrition campaigns for fruit and vegetable consumption, fat intake, and breastfeeding, have been slightly more successful on average than for other health topics. The factors affecting success rates are discussed. The conclusion is that nutrition campaigns that pay attention to the specific behavioral goals of the intervention, target populations, communication activities and channels, message content and presentation, and techniques for feedback and evaluation should be able to change nutrition behaviors.

Key Words: campaigns, media, behavior change, target populations, communication channels, message design, evaluation