title: The Long Live Kids campaign: awareness of campaign messages.
abstract: Media interventions are one strategy used to promote physical activity, but little is known about their effectiveness with children. As part of a larger evaluation, the purpose of this study was to assess the short-term effect of a private industry sponsored media literacy campaign, Long Live Kids, aimed at children in Canada. Specifically, we investigated children's awareness of the campaign and its correlates. Using a cohort design, a national sample (N = 331, male = 171; mean age = 10.81, SD = 0.99) completed a telephone survey two weeks prior to the campaign release, and again 1 year later. Only 3% of the children were able to recall the Long Live Kids campaign unprompted and 57% had prompted recall. Logistic regression found family income (Wald χ(2) = 11.06, p < .05), and free-time physical activity (Wald χ(2) = 5.67, p < .01) significantly predicted campaign awareness. Active children (≥3 days/week) were twice as likely to have recalled the campaign compared with inactive children (<3 days/week), whereas children living in high-income households (>$60,000/yr) were between 3.5 to 5 times more likely to have campaign recall compared with children living in a low-income households (<$20,000/yr). These findings suggest that media campaigns developed by industry may have a role in promoting physical activity to children although our findings identified a knowledge gap between children living in high- and low-income households. Future research needs to examine how children become aware of such media campaigns and how this mediated information is being used by children.
authors.affiliation: University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. guy.faulkner@utoronto.ca
authors.forename: Guy E J
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Faulkner
authors.forename: Matthew Y W
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Kwan
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: MacNeill
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brownrigg
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D057220:Health Literacy; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D008402:Mass Media; D011939:Mental Recall; D009043:Motor Activity; D017149:Private Sector