Background (Background, Rationale, Prior Research, and/or Theory): USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) encourages social marketing as a way to enhance nutrition education in SNAP-Ed. In 2016, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System at Auburn University (ACES) developed three new billboard messages as part of its rebranded Nutrition Education Program, Live Well Alabama.
Objective: To measure awareness of the social marketing campaign messages among selected Alabama SNAP-Ed parents.
Study Design, Setting, Participants, Intervention: Altarum conducted an outcome evaluation using measures from the SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework to assess reach and receptivity of social marketing campaign messages among parents of third grade Body Quest students throughout Alabama. A telephone survey was designed and data collected in April and May 2017.
Outcome Measures and Analysis: Descriptive statistics were produced to describe the sample population and outcome variables. Confidence intervals were calculated to estimate significant differences among survey respondents at the alpha = 0.05 level.
Results: A total of 433 surveys were completed. Over one-third (37.7%) of respondents were exposed to at least one of the campaign messages. Repeated exposure to campaign messages was evident, most notably for the fruit and vegetable message where nearly half (46.9%) of all respondents exposed to this message recalled seeing it five or more times. Respondents exposed to the campaign messages consumed significantly more cups of fruits and vegetables per day than those who were unexposed (1.8 and 1.3 cups, respectively for fruits; 1.9 and 1.6 cups, respectively for vegetables). Respondents most frequently reported planning healthy meals (46.1%), eating more fruits and vegetables (44.9%), buying more fruits and vegetables (41.3%), thinking about making healthy food choices (40.7%), drinking more water (38.9%), and exercising more (34.1%) after exposure to campaign messages. Lack of time was reported as the primary barrier for adopting behaviors such as healthier eating and physical activity.
Conclusions and Implications: ACES successfully launched a newly rebranded social marketing campaign in 2017 recognized by over one-third of respondents surveyed.
Funding: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—Education.
Supplementary Data
The following is the supplementary data to this article:
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