Abstract
BackgroundIn view of the high costs of mass-media campaigns, it is important to understand whether it is possible for a media campaign to have significant population effects over a short period of time. This paper explores this question specifically in reference to stigma and discrimination against people with mental health problems using the Time to Change Cambridge anti-stigma campaign as an example.Methods410 face-to-face interviews were performed pre, during and post campaign activity to assess campaign awareness and mental health-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviours.ResultsAlthough campaign awareness was not sustained following campaign activity, significant and sustained shifts occurred for mental health-related knowledge items. Specifically, there was a 24% (p < 0.001) increase in persons agreeing with the statement: If a friend had a mental health problem, I know what advice to give them to get professional help, following the campaign. Additionally, for the statement: Medication can be an effective treatment for people with mental health problems, there was a 10% rise (p = 0.05) in the proportion of interviewees responding 'agree' or 'strongly agree' following the campaign. These changes, however, were not evident for attitudinal or behaviour related questions.ConclusionsAlthough these results only reflect the impact of one small scale campaign, these preliminary findings suggest several considerations for mass-media campaign development and evaluation strategies such as: (1) Aiming to influence outcomes pertaining to knowledge in the short term; (2) Planning realistic and targeted outcomes over the short, medium and long term during sustained campaigns; and (3) Monitoring indirect campaign effects such as social discourse or other social networking/contact in the evaluation.
Highlights
In view of the high costs of mass-media campaigns, it is important to understand whether it is possible for a media campaign to have significant population effects over a short period of time
Our evaluation showed that prompted campaign awareness increased incrementally over the 4-week period of the campaign and peaked during the last week of the campaign at 23%
Implications for campaign development and evaluation Importance of Knowledge Based Outcomes these results only reflect the impact of one small scale campaign, these preliminary findings suggest several considerations for mass-media campaign development and evaluation strategies
Summary
In view of the high costs of mass-media campaigns, it is important to understand whether it is possible for a media campaign to have significant population effects over a short period of time. This paper explores this question in reference to stigma and discrimination against people with mental health problems using the Time to Change Cambridge anti-stigma campaign as an example. In January 2009, Time to Change launched a national social marketing campaign aiming to reduce stigma and discrimination against people with mental health problems[1,2,3]. Other studies have detected an association between longer duration and higher intensity campaigns with improved behavioural outcomes such as reductions in smoking prevalence, when compared to single interventions or short term versus long term campaigns [7,8]
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