Social marketing for public health.

Marketing techniques and tools, imported from the private sector, are increasingly being advocated for their potential value in crafting and disseminating effective social change strategies. This paper describes the field of social marketing as it is used to improve the health of the public. A disciplined process of strategic planning can yield promising new insights into consumer behavior and product design. But the "technology" cannot simply be transferred without some translation to reconcile differences between commercial marketing and public health.

PIP: While the administration of US President Bill Clinton is trying to reform the US health care system, less attention is being given to changing behavior. The problems caused by excessive alcohol drinking, poor diets, and the use of tobacco products and other harmful substances often tend to be more related to a country's health status than are acute, short-lived illnesses. Private sector-derived marketing techniques and tools are increasingly being used to create and disseminate effective social change strategies. The authors describe how social marketing can be used to improve public health. They draw from information obtained from major textbooks, conference proceedings, telephone interviews with more than 30 practitioners and scholars in the field, and data on the application of social marketing in maternal and child health and nutrition in developing countries, family planning in developing countries, the anti-smoking campaign in the US, cardiovascular disease risk reduction, and substance abuse prevention among adolescents. Sections consider the historical convergence of marketing and health promotion; the essential elements of a social marketing approach to health; lessons learned from applications of social marketing to health; and limitations, caveats, and issues for the future.

The relationship of early risk and current mediators to depressive symptomatology in adolescence.

In an ongoing 10-year longitudinal study in a lower-middle-class community, 21% of 378 fifteen-year-olds studied through interviews and questionnaires reported high levels of depressive symptoms on the Children's Depression Inventory. Girls were twice as likely to express depressive symptoms as boys. Early risk factors for high levels of depressive symptomatology included serious preschool illness, anxiety expressed at age 9, and death of a parent for girls but not boys. Mediators of high depressive symptoms at adolescence consisted of family cohesiveness and satisfactory social supports as well as adolescents' positive self-perceptions of popularity, attractiveness, and intellectual competence.