Lost in Translation: Lessons Learned in Marketing Physical Activity

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis:  Choose Health LA Kids is a program in Los Angeles County helping families with children ages 0-5 build and maintain healthy lifestyles. The program is administered by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health made possible through funding from the First 5 LA early childhood development organization. The Choose Health LA Kids program was designed with the social-ecological approach in mind. Multiple interventions operate at various levels of the social-ecological model – individual level, organizational level, community level, and systems/societal level. The media campaigns funded through this grant to support the programmatic and policy work of the Choose Health LA Kids program, formed part of the societal level within context of the social-ecological theoretical framework. Mass media and public education campaigns are common strategies used to promote behavior change, in this case, to promote more physical activity and to reduce sedentary behavior. Childhood obesity cannot be solved with one single strategy. However, the effectiveness of such mass media messages needs to be tested to determine what visuals and media approaches resonate with parents and caregivers of young children. Focus groups can yield valuable information about how to market physical activity and prompt behavior change.

Methods:  In August 2016, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health launched the “Less Screen Time, More Active Time” campaign to complement physical activity policy and program efforts. Four focus groups with 8-10 participants each were conducted in both English and Spanish. The sample population targeted low-income parents of young children ages 2-5 who used a device (TV, tablet, video game, smartphone, handheld device) to watch programs, for educational programming, or to play games. Four distinct campaign creative designs and call-to-action messages were focus tested.

Results:  This poster will highlight findings from the focus groups including a visual comparison of the four physical activity creative designs, calls to action, and media approaches. Results from both the English and Spanish focus groups will be presented to demonstrate potential impact of approach. Content analysis and other qualitative approaches will be used to analyze the focus group data.

Conclusions:  Given the common use of mass media education campaigns as public health interventions, efforts to conduct formative research through focus groups to evaluate target audience receptivity and response to media messages and approaches is critical to making lasting behavior change. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  When public health practitioners market and try to promote physical activity, they need to take into account how their target audiences/populations define and view physical activity. It may not be the same definition that public health practitioners use to describe moving more to stay active. The terminology, definitions, and visuals used to promote physical activity can greatly impact the effectiveness and adaptability of health messages into action by the populations that we serve in local health departments.