Use of social marketing to address the global burden of disease: Initiatives and effects

Purpose: To assess the use of social marketing interventions to address public health concerns and provide evidence on the effectiveness of the approach as a preventive tool in public health programming. Method: A scoping review framework was used, and articles published between 2000 and 2015 were included. Social marketing interventions were defined as interventions meeting at least six of the eight National Social Marketing Benchmark criteria adapted by French and Blair-Stevens (2006). Results: Sixty-nine (69) social marketing studies were included in the study. Nutrition, physical health and obesity (24.6%), malaria (20.3%), HIV/AIDS (11.6%), and cancer (10.0%) were the most prominent public health topics where social marketing strategies were employed. On the effectiveness of using social marketing in public health results indicated that the use of electronic medical records (EMR) among medical students increased from 13.8% to 54.7% while alcohol-impaired driving decreased from 85.0% to 65.0%, and child’s sugar-sweetened beverages intake reduced from 82.2% to 68.8%. The protective effect of ITN use to prevent malaria yielded OR=0.46 (95% CI: 0.30, 0.71, p=0.236). Limitations: The lack of high-quality data from the evaluation of social marketing interventions poses a major challenge and this needs to be addressed. Originality/value: Though the social marketing framework has gained widespread use in addressing and preventing some public health crises, the use of the framework seems limited to certain health topics, such as malaria and physical activities, nutrition, and obesity.