title: Development of a smoking prevention mass media program using diagnostic and formative research.
abstract: The process of developing a mass media campaign to prevent smoking among adolescents is described in detail. This campaign supplements a school smoking prevention program and shares educational objectives with the school program but is otherwise independent. It comprises various television and radio 30- and 60-sec "spot" messages. The campaign development process includes identifying educational objectives and strategies for appealing to young people; conducting diagnostic surveys and focus groups to determine target audience interests and perceptions about smoking and media content; suggesting approaches to producers to create preliminary television and radio messages for testing; conducting formative pretests with target groups to select optimal messages and suggest improvements to those messages; producing final messages for media presentation; and developing a media exposure plan to place messages in local media at optimal times for reception by target audiences. The media campaign is being evaluated in a 5-year project with 5,500 adolescents in four communities to determine the additional effect of mass media over a school program alone in preventing smoking.
authors.affiliation: Office of Health Promotion Research, University of Vermont, Burlington 05405.
authors.forename: J K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Worden
authors.forename: B S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Flynn
authors.forename: B M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Geller
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Shelton
authors.forename: R H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Secker-Walker
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Solomon
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Solomon
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Couchey
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Costanza
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008402:Mass Media; D011845:Radio; D012572:School Health Services; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D013690:Television; D014481:United States