A New Year’s Resolution for Health Communications?
It is no surprise that health-related behaviors, such as quitting smoking or losing weight, top the New Year resolution lists. We all know that losing weight and not smoking are two of the most important lifestyle changes a person can make
to help effectuate long-term health. Unfortunately, such important decisions to improve one’s health often fizzle out a few weeks after the New Year’s toast.
Successfully changing and sustaining a personal health behavior – even when we desperately want to – is extremely difficult. Many factors in our day-to-day life trigger old habits and weaken our most gung-ho resolve.
Health experts advise us to start thinking before the new year arrives about what it will really take to make a change and follow through. They tell us to plan ahead before starting a new diet or throwing that pack of cigarettes away. They suggest that we tap into the supports, motivations, and tactics it will take to succeed. But even with a well-thought-out plan and the best of intentions, some of us still fail.
If a person is convinced and wholly committed to changing a behavior at the start of a new year, yet still struggles to follow through, imagine what many health promotion efforts face? Even though it seems common sense to want to live longer and be healthier, health promotion efforts often need to address audiences who may not want to change, or believe that the change will prove useful, or even understand the relevance of the suggested behavior change to their own lives.
We are so eager to get to our goals, even as health communicators, that it’s tempting to “get going” on communication strategies before “digging deep” to understand where the audience is coming from. But just like health experts tell us to plan ahead, social marketers should likewise take a look at external and internal influences on a desired behavior — before developing an intervention. External factors such as policies, access, and skills can hinder or motivate change. Internal factors such as knowledge, attitudes, and confidence in ability to adopt a new behavior are equally important.
Some of the questions social marketers ask, before developing campaigns and programs, flush out the complex worlds people live in day to day: What does the audience perceive as barriers to change? What do they identify as potential benefits for targeted behavior? Are there competing behaviors or external forces that may create a hurdle? What will those who influence them (such as a spouse or friends) think about the change? Will they support it or thwart it? What messaging and channels do they identify as most effective in helping them change and sustain a behavior?
Sticking to New Year’s resolutions is almost impossible if we don’t know and understand ourselves, and the environment we live in, pretty darn well. This rings true for health communication campaigns and programs as well. Let’s ring in 2010 by making a resolution to truly understand what influences, motivates, and supports our audience, as the key to successfully changing behavior.
