Culturally and linguistically diverse population health social marketing campaigns in Australia: a consideration of evidence and related evaluation issues.
OBJECTIVE
This paper describes a review of population health social marketing campaigns targeting culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) communities in Australia in order to identify characteristics of effective CLD campaigns.


METHODS
Literature on CLD population health social marketing was identified from electronic searches of databases in August 2004. At the same time, the grey literature was examined by searching the Internet and talking to Australian experts in the fields of CLD social marketing and CLD research.


RESULTS
Eight studies met the search criteria, four from the published literature. Two studies that employed prepost evaluation designs provided tentative support for the potential efficacy of CLD social marketing strategies. The remaining studies did not allow for causal attribution as they used post-campaign only or process evaluations. Studies did, however, show that CLD communities access campaign-related information from both mainstream and ethnic media channels. In addition, Vietnamese respondents were more likely to access campaign messages through ethnic radio and Chinese respondents through ethnic press.


CONCLUSIONS
There is insufficient evidence to clearly identify the characteristics of effective CLD campaigns. Campaign evaluation designs used to evaluate social marketing strategies targeting CLD communities in Australia are generally weak, but there is tentative evidence supporting the potential efficacy of these strategies in some Australian settings.
Milat
Andrew J
AJ
Research and Marketing Group, Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, Sydney, New South Wales. andrew.milat@health.gov.au
Carroll
Tom E
TE
Taylor
Jennifer J
JJ
D001315:Australia; D003144:Communication Barriers; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D008402:Mass Media