According to the American School Food Service Association, only 14% of school districts reported having policies that regulate the nutritional quality of foods sold at school. Schools play a significant role in feeding California’s children and thus, contribute to the acquisition of lifetime dietary habits. Within public school systems, school boards are the decision-making body that set and enforce local policies within their jurisdiction. Therefore, school boards have the ability to influence adolescent eating habits by eliminating policies that create barriers to healthy eating and instituting policies that encourage healthy eating. Working with ten California communities, the University of South Florida Prevention Research Center and California Project LEAN conducted formative research to develop a social marketing plan to motivate policymakers to examine and enact local school district policies that support healthy eating. A social marketing approach enables researchers and program planners to understand what motivates and discourages local policymakers to support healthy eating policies. Formative research included a literature review of prevention programs that have used policy strategies to impact population-based behavior change; key informant interviews with school-based policymakers; a news scan of coverage in California’s major newspapers on how the media covers adolescent nutrition policies; and a school board and superintendent survey. Based on these findings, the social marketing plan details: - priority target audience(s); - competing behaviors and barriers to adopting the promoted behavior; - perceived benefits and motivations to adopting the promoted behavior; - campaign objectives; - behavioral objective(s); - message points; - strategies; and - tactics. See www.dhs.ca.gov/lean
Learning Objectives: Attendees will: - Discuss how formative research can be used to better understand policy decisions. - Identify social marketing as a strategy to reach school board members and other local policy makers. - Learn 3 methods of formative research.
Keywords: Social Marketing, Policy/Policy Development
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
Disclosure not received
Relationship: Not Received.