Health Public Service Advertising Campaigns Health And Social Care Essay

The flurry of advertisements associated with public service campaigns raises several questions regarding it’s worth and effectiveness. Public service advertisements (PSA) or announcements are promotional material that addresses problems assumed to be of general concern to citizens at large. PSA typically attempt to increase public awareness of such problems and their possible solutions, and in many instances also try to influence public beliefs, attitudes, and behavior concerning them (O’Keefe, 1990). Most of the PSA deal with health of personal safety topics, including alcohol and drug abuse, preventive health care, traffic safety, nutrition etc. Some PSA also include environmental issues, educational and literacy issues, consumer issues, and general humanitarian concerns like hygiene and cleanliness issues. Mass media audiences are generally attentive and give positive reactions to such advertisements.

Healthcare in India is the responsibility of constituent states and territories of India. The Constitution charges every state with “raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties”. The National Health Policy was endorsed by the Parliament of India in 1983 and updated in 2002.

Health related public service campaigns are the advertising campaigns that are run by the government to create awareness among public about diseases which are very dangerous. The Government of India has introduced various health programme and policies to improve the Indian citizen’s standard of living. Government chooses number of mediums to reach to the masses. For this the government uses television, newspaper, hoardings and radio. Sometimes rallies are also organized to create awareness among people. The example of these kind of campaigns are AIDS awareness campaign run by the government under the banner of national AIDS control organization (NACO), Campaign for tuberculosis, malaria and polio are other examples. Sometimes famous celebrities are taken in the advertisements to create more impact.

The study has been undertaken with an objective to measure the effectiveness of health related public service advertisement campaigns which are run by the government of India. The study included three campaigns which are malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS,

Over the years, an increasing level of insecticide-resistance has developed in the malarial vectors in many parts of the country, while the incidence of the more deadly P-Falciparum Malaria has risen to about 50 percent in the country as a whole. In respect of TB, the public health scenario has not shown any significant decline in the pool of infection amongst the community, and there has been a distressing trend in the increase of drug resistance to the type of infection prevailing in the country. A new and extremely virulent communicable disease – HIV/AIDS – has emerged on the health scene. As there is no existing therapeutic cure or vaccine for this infection, the disease constitutes a serious threat, not merely to public health but to economic development in the country also. (NHP 2002)

Literature Review

Public service advertising (PSA) campaigns are widespread around the Globe. Public service announcements are a type of advertising, sponsored by either government agencies or other organizations, to promote causes and activities generally considered socially desirable (Garbett, 1981). PSAs use paid as well as donated media for creating awareness for social issues. Such advertising is generally produced and distributed on a cooperative basis by governmental agencies or nonprofit organizations working in cooperation with private advertising and mass media companies. Generally the content or programming, while the participating advertising agency and media companies provide creative services, media planning and dissemination services on a not for profit basis. Studies have found no distinction in the effectiveness with the either type of media. Based on self-reported behavior from sample surveys and official count s of incapacitating and fatal highway accidents, in three market field experiments comparing the effectiveness of Paid versus Donated Media in decreasing youth male drinking and driving, the study found both type of media strategies to be equally effective (Murry Jr., 1996). The placement of PSAs has long been debated and earlier studies reveal that most of the PSAs were being placed during non-prime time especially between 7am to 6pm on weekdays (Hannmen et al, 1973). However recent analysis of advertising pattern indicates more favorable time distribution. Same pattern has been observed in India also.

In a study to explore effects of message framing of health advertisements and individual differences in temporal orientation on consumer risk perceptions, attitude, and behavioral intentions, Consumers’ temporal orientation moderates ad-framing effects related to goal pursuit strategies. The study demonstrates that a “fit” between a goal pursuit strategy (GPS) manipulation in the ad and consumers’ chronic regulatory focus increases the effectiveness of the advertisement, but the regulatory fit effect is moderated by temporal orientation (Kees, 2010).

Exposure to the PSA had no discernible effects on HIV-related knowledge, but did affect perceptions. Compared with an unexposed control group, students exposed to the PSA estimated seeing more HIV- and AIDS-related PSAs and rated the usefulness of TV PSAs lower, at the same time were more likely to rate their chances of contracting HIV as low or none. The respondents expressed less desire to obtain more information. The use of an all-mnemonic phone “number” resulted in a threefold increase in recall of the CDC National AIDS Hotline phone number, but did not affect intentions to call. Overall, the results reaffirm the importance of deploying strategies that go beyond reliance on either a single PSA or TV PSAs alone to affect knowledge, perceptions, or intentions (Nowak, 1993).

A study to judge effectiveness of PSAs found that it is necessary to conduct empirical research to determine the critical variables influencing a given behavior also there is a need to critically evaluate the potential effectiveness of a given PSA. As all PSAs might not be equally effective and some even might have negative effect. To be effective the PSA need to provide new information and perceived as realistic (Fishbein, 2002).

Public service campaigns are often developed without prior assessment of target audience felt needs and perceptions; audience are not segmented into subgroups indicated by these characteristics, and message and material development proceeds without pretesting the effect of such factors as message clarity, appeals or presenters with target audience (Bratic, 1981). Although testing message in pre-finished form, the producer can identify and correct, potential weaknesses and corrections would be time and budget affordable. In absence of a standardized Health message testing service, effectiveness needs to be checked through post testing. Studies like this one can offer implications for theory, as well as for creators of public service advertising campaigns. North Coast Area Health Service (NCAHS) conducted a seven week television advertising campaign to raise community awareness of the availability of free adult pneumococcal vaccination and to increase coverage among North Coast residents. Effectiveness of the campaign was evaluated by examining vaccine ordering patterns of North Coast vaccination providers keeping previous year as a base. In the months during and immediately following the advertising campaign, a significantly higher proportion of vaccines were dispatched to North Coast immunization service providers (Wallace, 2008). An intervention approach using culturally sensitive mass media messages to enhance protective beliefs and behavior of African American adolescents at risk for HIV is suggested by Romer, 2009. This approach exploits the potential that mass media messages have, not only to reach a large segment of the adolescent population and thereby support normative change, but also to engage the most vulnerable segments of this audience to reduce HIV-associated risk behaviors. This study provides further evidence that if a media campaign achieves high exposure and is developed on the basis of careful formative research; it can be an effective HIV-prevention tool for reaching high-risk youth within communities that need them the most. PSAs containing strong verbal claims are rated as more effective than those with weak claims. Arousing messages with weak claims are perceived as least effective. Surprisingly in this study increasing claim strength increased memory for negative but not for positive messages. It is suggested that the combination of intense emotional appeal and weak claims may be partially responsible for the boomerang effects in antidrug campaigns (Lang, 2008). In a study to investigate the consequences of using national celebrities, local celebrities and disaster victims as spokespersons in a public service radio announcement (PSA) soliciting contributions for victims of Hurricane Katrina, it was found that the hurricane victim was the most credible and believable spokesperson. The national celebrity, Ashlee Simpson, was the least credible and the least believable. The local celebrity was more credible and believable than the national celebrity, but no more so than the hurricane victim (Toncar, 2007). No studies were found in Indian context regarding effectiveness of PSA. An attempt is being made to explore this area through this empirical study.

Research Design

Research Objective

To Study the effectiveness of Public Service Awareness Campaigns in diseases such as Malaria , T.B. & AIDS.

Methodology

The present investigations were descriptive in nature with survey being used as the major research approach. The study used survey method of obtaining information, which is based on the interrogation of respondents through a structured questionnaire.

Scope of the study

Being self-funded the study was confined to Ahmedabad city of India. The city is one of the most important urban centers of country and represents diversity of India.

Sampling Plan

The Population: The study is carried out in Ahmedabad city of India. The total urban population of city becomes population for the study.

Sampling Unit: Sampling units for the study is individual. From the above population, all the respondents who have seen any of the selected advertisements for the study were defined as sampling unit for the purpose of the study.

Sampling technique: Non probability convenience sampling was used. Care was taken to make the sample representative of the actual population.

Size of the Sample: Respondents for the study were 150.

Instrument for data collection

For data collection a survey using a structured questionnaire was conducted. To Measure effectiveness a questionnaire consisting of open and close ended questions was used. The questionnaire included scale developed by-Leavitt, Clark. (1970). “A Multidimensional Set of Rating Scales for Television Commercials”, Journal of Applied Psychology, 54, 427-429, to judge effectiveness of advertisements apart from other open and close ended questions regarding use of celebrities and other executional aspects of the advertisements. The comprehensive scale gives effectiveness of Advertisements using Forty Five items with eight dimensions like Energetic, Amusing, Personal Relevance, Authoritative, sensual, Familiarity, Novel and Disliked.

Results

Recall of the advertisements

Advertisement of AIDS was highest watched followed by TB and Malaria.

Suitable Media

Best suited media for creating awareness through PSAs was found to be Television followed by Print. Road shows or rally were not found to be very effective media for communicating health related social issues.

Impact of Celebrity/ Religious leaders

People strongly agreed to impact of Celebrity and Religious Leaders in creating awareness through PSAs (Mean 3.84). In terms of source credibility i.e. effectiveness of Celebrity endorsers in PSAs, Mean score for Attractiveness (4.50) was highest followed by Trustworthiness (3.93) and Expertise (3.61). It implies that popular celebrities are helpful in drawing attention of masses towards the campaign. Merely appearance in the advertisement increases the recall of the advertisement and thus increasing effectiveness of PSA.

Useful Information Communicated by the campaign

As evident from high mean score (3.37), people do believe that they gain useful information from the PSAs.

Effectiveness of Advertisements

To judge the effectiveness 45 item Levitt’s reaction profile was used. The scale has eight dimensions giving effectiveness of the advertisements. Responses were collected on a 5 point scale where 1 indicated does not fit and 5 indicated fits extremely well. The scores for last dimensions were reverse coded to judge overall effectiveness of the advertisements. As can be seen scores for personal relevance, familiarity and disliked (reverse coded) are higher. Thus it can be inferred that the respondents find advertisement to be meaningful and relevant as well as they have seen those advertisements many times indicating familiarity with the advertisements. The score for Disliked dimensions were high (reverse coded) indicating people liked the public service advertisements.

TABLE 1: EFFECTIVENSS OF PUBLIC SERVICE ADVERTISEMENTS (LEVITT’S REACTION PROFILE)

Effectiveness of PSA

Dimension

Mean score

TB

Malaria

AIDS

Energetic

2.48

2.58

2.62

Amusing

2.52

2.43

2.46

Personal Relevance

3.43

3.36

3.46

Authoritative

2.74

2.73

2.85

Sensual

2.53

2.61

2.76

Familiarity

3.10

3.09

3.27

Novel

2.88

2.80

2.82

Disliked

3.65

3.61

3.60

Overall Mean

2.90

2.89

2.96 Factor Analysis:

There are two preconditions for running factor analysis. They are measure of sampling adequacy should be greater than 0.5 and second being determinant value should be non zero. For all the factor models ran as mentioned in table 1, both these conditions are satisfied.

TABLE 2: ALTERNATIVE FACTOR MODELS

Scale

Number of factors

Factor Model

Explained variation

Number of factors

e>1

76%

Eight factors

66.7%

Malaria

e>1

75.9%

Malaria

Eight factors

65.5%

Aids

e>1

76.11%

Aids

Eight factors

65.5%

TB

By factor analysis, it is inferred that when we solve for eight factor solution, we are able to deduce eight factors like energetic, mix of amusing and novel, personal relevance, authoritative, sensual, familiarity & disliked factors. When we solve for eigen value greater than one, we deduce 12 factors. The factor structure for eight factor solution is more clean compared to eigen value greater than one solution. But, it is less precise than provided by the scale.

Malaria

Factor analysis was conducted and eight factor solution had a better fit compared to eigen value greater than one solution. The factors deduced from eight factor solution are namely, mix of amusing and dislike, novel, sensual, authoritative, familiarity, energetic, personal relevance & a mix of personal relevance & authoritative dimensions.

Aids

Factor analysis was conducted and eight factor solution had a better fit compared to eigen value greater than one solution. The factors deduced from eight factor solution are namely, Mix of energetic, Sensual, Disliked & Amusing, Energetic, Authoritative, Mix of familiarity & Novel, Personal Relevance 1 & Personal Relevance 2.

Difference in perception of respondents of different demographic segments regarding effectiveness of public service advertisements

As can be seen from table 3, we can infer that for disease TB, the difference in scores for amusing and personal relevance dimensions of Leavitt’s reaction profile scale for respondents across different income levels is statistically significant at 0.05 level of significance. Also, the difference in scores for energetic, amusing, authoritative, sensual, novel and disliked factors of the scale for respondents of different age brackets is statistically significant at 0.05 level of significance. The difference in scores on energetic, amusing and disliked dimensions of the scale is statistically significant for male and female respondents.

Similarly from table 4, we can infer that for disease Malaria, the difference in scores for personal relevance dimension for respondents across different income levels is statistically significant at 0.05 level of significance.

Also, for disease AIDS, the difference in scores for personal relevance, energetic, amusing, authoritative, sensual, novel and disliked factors for respondents of different income levels are statistically significant. The difference in scores on energetic, amusing, personal relevance, sensual, novel and disliked factors for respondents of different age brackets are statistically significant. Also, the difference in scores on energetic, amusing, personal relevance, novel and disliked dimensions for male and female respondents are statistically significant at 0.05 level of significance.

TABLE 3: ANOVA RESULTS FOR DISEASE TB

Between Groups

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Income Levels

Amusing

22.905

5.726

4.527

.002

Personal Relevance

4.313

1.078

3.216

.015

Age Levels

Energetic

12.451

4.150

6.704

.000

Amusing

21.245

7.082

5.587

.001

Authoritative

5.178

1.726

3.488

.017

Sensual

9.145

3.048

5.708

.001

Novel

10.164

3.388

7.532

.000

Disliked

19.897

6.632

10.750

.000

Gender

Energetic

3.169

4.706

.032

Amusing

12.539

9,578

0.002

Disliked

9.541

14.060

0.000

TABLE 4: ANOVA RESULTS FOR DISEASE MALARIA

Between Groups

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Income Levels

Personal Relevance

5.501

1.375

3.511

.009

Age Levels

Energetic

10.926

3.642

9.089

.000

Amusing

17.485

5.828

9.304

.000

Authoritative

4.245

1.415

3.850

.011

Sensual

9.945

3.315

5.810

.001

Novel

6.597

2.199

4.206

.007

Disliked

15.923

5.308

8.339

.000

Gender

Between Groups

Sum of squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Energetic

2.370

5.231

0.024

Amusing

3.968

5.594

0.019

Disliked

5.423

7.759

.006

TABLE 5: ANOVA RESULTS FOR DISEASE AIDS

Between Groups

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig.

Income Levels

Energetic

6.645

1.661

2.906

.024

Amusing

9.031

2.258

2.903

.024

Personal Relevance

7.443

1.861

5.770

.000

Novel

4.642

1.160

2.887

.025

Age Levels

Energetic

7.310

2.437

4.327

.006

Amusing

9.007

3.002

3.886

.010

Personal Relevance

3.570

1.190

3.432

.019

Authoritative

5.125

1.708

4.178

.007

Sensual

11.302

3.767

3.062

.030

Novel

7.075

2.358

6.165

.001

Disliked

10.409

3.470

5.458

.001

Gender

Energetic

4.605

8.024

.005

Amusing

6.750

8.682

.004

Personal Relevance

1.565

4.400

0.038

Novel

2.282

5.570

.020

Disliked

3.667

.021

Effectiveness in terms of preventive measures

From the survey it was revealed that people have taken proper preventive measures after watching advertisement of public service campaigns. More than 94% respondents agreed to the fact. As per the survey people think AIDS is the most harmful diseases than T.B. and Malaria. From the survey it can conclude that most of the respondents (57%) have provided BCG & Malaria vaccine to their child but still a good number of respondents are there who have yet not provide these vaccines to their child (43%). It shows that either these diseases are not considered to be as severe by the respondents or awareness for availability of vaccine for these two diseases is low. Majority of respondents (73% ) were found to be are aware of free government services that is run by government in their area for diseases like AIDS, T.B and Malaria.

Discussion

Recall for AIDS advertisement was highest followed by TB and Malaria. Celebrities were found to be effective in PSAs. Celebrities were found to be high in attractiveness and thus adding more credibility to the campaign. Respondents believed that they gained useful information from the public service campaigns. Television was found to be the most effective media for PSAs. Overall effectiveness of all PSAs was found to be high. As evident from the above findings it can be concluded that people have good exposure to the public service campaigns and find advertisements to be relevant. People liked the PSAs. Clear factor structure has not emerged as compared to the standardized scale. Some dimensions were not deduced in case of all three cases. Differences were found amongst different demographic segments of consumers regarding perception towards the advertisements, signifying importance of tailoring the advertisements for different demographic segments. From the survey it was revealed that people have taken proper preventive measures after watching advertisement of public service campaigns. Most of the respondents have provided BCG & Malaria vaccine to their child but still a good number of respondents are there who have yet not provide these vaccines to their child. It shows that either these diseases are not considered to be as severe by the respondents or awareness for availability of vaccine for these two diseases is low. Thus it is imperative for government to promote vaccination for the said ailments. Aware ness of free government services run by government in their area for diseases like AIDS, T.B and Malaria was found to be high.

Limitations and Future Research

Limitations associated with non probability sampling techniques go with this study also but due care was taken to make sample representative of the actual population. Further research can focus on lifestyle and personality factors of the respondents that might shape their perceptions towards the public service advertisements.

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