Social marketing, stages of change, and public health smoking interventions.
As a "thought experiment," the authors used a modified stages of change model for smoking to define homogeneous segments within various hypothetical populations. The authors then estimated the population effect of public health interventions that targeted the different segments. Under most assumptions, interventions that emphasized primary and secondary prevention, by targeting the Never Smoker, Maintenance, or Action segments, resulted in the highest nonsmoking life expectancy. This result is consistent with both social marketing and public health principles. Although the best thing for an individual smoker is to stop smoking, the greatest public health benefit is achieved by interventions that target nonsmokers.
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-7232, USA. pdiehr@u.washington.edu
Paula
P
Diehr
Peggy
P
Hannon
Barbara
B
Pizacani
Mark
M
Forehand
Hendrika
H
Meischke
Susan
S
Curry
Diane P
DP
Martin
Marcia R
MR
Weaver
Jeffrey
J
Harris
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy / Q000639:trends; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008875:Middle Aged; D011634:Public Health / Q000379:methods*; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D040241:Social Marketing; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult