A comparison of different approaches to promote community-wide dietary change

• Published in: American journal of preventive medicine 2000-05, Vol.18 (4), p.271-275
• Main Authors: Reger, Bill, Wootan, Margo G, Booth-Butterfield, Steven
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; advertising; Advertising as Topic - methods; Aged; Analysis of Variance; Animals; Chi-Square Distribution; Community Networks - organization & administration; diet; Diet Surveys; Diet, Fat-Restricted; Female; Food Industry - standards; Health Behavior; health education; Health Education - organization & administration; Humans; Male; mass media; Middle Aged; Milk - standards; nutrition; Probability; Program Development; Program Evaluation; public relations; West Virginia
• ISSN: 0749-3797; 1873-2607
• DOI: 10.1016/S0749-3797(00)00118-5

Background: Because public health education funds are limited, it is important to determine which methods are most effective for promoting healthy lifestyles to communities. We conducted interventions in two communities to further examine the effectiveness of various educational approaches for communicating the “1% Or Less” message to switch from high-fat (whole or 2%) to low-fat (1% or fat-free) milk. Methods: One intervention used public relations and community-based educational activities in supermarkets, schools, worksites, and other community settings. The other used paid advertising in the absence of other programming. We used telephone surveys and supermarket milk sales data, collected before and after each campaign and in a comparison community, to determine changes in milk-usage patterns. Results: After the campaign of community-based educational programs and public relations activities, the proportion of high-fat milk drinkers who reported drinking low-fat milk was 19.6% compared with 6.8% for the comparison city ( p