CHEMICAL HEALTH

Designing Chemical Health Promotion Messages

Communities that are interested in chemical health promotion may want to make awareness raising part of their multiple strategy approach to encouraging healthy behavior around alcohol, tobacco and other drug use.

Awareness raising strategies seek to increase the acceptability of a social idea or behavioral practice among a selected group or population (i.e., conducting a publicity campaign that points out that drinking and driving is a public health hazard, or that tobacco advertising promotes underage use of tobacco products and thus should be restricted in locations where children are often present).

Awareness campaigns are designed and implemented through the process of "social marketing." The goal is to analyze and understand your target audience, so that you can design promotional materials and strategies that they will find interesting and pay attention to. You want your audience to listen to, read, or watch your chemical health promotion messages, think about the information that you have given them, and then hopefully, begin to take action to change their own behavior and the social norms around them.

When designing your chemical health promotion (prevention) messages, some important points to make about alcohol/tobacco use include:

  • Chemical health problems affect everyone within a community, (i.e., the community ends up paying the costs of health care, social services, car crashes, family and other violence, property damage, reduced employment, etc.), and

  • Chemical Health Promotion requires full community support and input to be successful.

WORKSHEETS

A Tool For Health Communication Planning
www.cdc.gov/communication/healthcomm.htm

TIP SHEET

WORKSHEET

Community Chemical Health Promotion Guide Main Page

Community Health Promotion Guide Main Page



See also > Center for Health Promotion > Health Promotion and Chronic Disease