Communication and behaviour modification - position statement

Traditionally, communication has been said to be a formal part of our effort in promoting health and nutrition in the region. But in what way is this reflected in our work? How do we see the role of communication? From observations, current effort is based on: *the perception that mass media channels are powerful means of influencing our audiences to accept our promotional messages, *knowledge based strategies. In recent years revoluntionary developments in communication technology, theory and practice facilitated partnership between those responsible for national health care programmes, and communication specialists with an orientation toward use of communication resources for social development. The secret of using health or nutrition communication effectively lies in find the appropriate medium, content and target audience to help to solve a specific health problem. The secret also lies in knowing how to place a health communication programme within the larger context of our national health and nutrition communication programme and services. All this must be done with limited resources and under circumstances that make healthier lifestyles the highest priority for the region in general and our country in particular. Merely providing information has been shown to be inadequate to change people's behaviour. The chronicle of failed behaviour change efforts demonstrates that new techniques are needed to supplement existing ones. Some of these techniques come from the commmerical marketing sector, which has devised a host of strategies to change human behaviour. These strategies can, for example, successfully motivate a particulr audience to buy one brand of processed food over another. Given that in health promotion our aim is also to change behaviour, some commerical communications techniques are believed to be appropriate contributions for bringing about the needed behaviour change that ensures a population's health and well-being. One approach to health and nutrition education is called social marketing. Social marketing is simply the application of generic private sector marketing to a specific class of problems. In this presentation, we show how social marketing techniques can be used effectively in the design and implementation of health promotion programmes aimed at behaviour change.(AU)