1. A new
concept of health
In 1948, even before the creation of the World Health
Organization (WHO), at the International Health Conference (New York, 1946), it
was defined that «health is a state of complete physical, mental and social
wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity» (WHO, 1946, p. 100).
This represents an important change from a pathogenic
concept – which means a health limited to the biomedical field –, to a holistic
concept that incorporates human sciences in that field where only medicine
wanted to rule. Health should be considered in its socio-economical dimensions,
involving the individuals, the environmental factors and the social conditions
to preserve them. For their part, public servers and citizens must have an
active position in the adoption of behaviours that can fight, control or prevent
infirmity.
2. The
role of social marketing in behavior change
At least, since 1971 (see Kotler & Zaltman),
applying marketing concepts and tools to improve social behaviour was established
as an important contribution to that holistic concept of health. Organizations
like WHO, FAO or the World Bank, and countries like Canada, New Zealand, USA or
Great Britain have adopted a wider policy on social marketing in the public
health sector. On a downstream level (see Andreasen, 2006), social marketing
interventions have spread across the world, including India, and they were submitted
to several evaluation studies (see Gordon et
al., 2006; Helmig & Thaler, 2010), ensuring evidence that social
marketing can be a good and efficient contribution. Approaches and tools like
proper research, a citizen-centric focus, strategic goals definition,
segmentation, targeting, positioning, branding, product, services or events
conception, pricing, distribution, integrated communication, or evaluation are important
contributions to health behaviour change interventions.
3. A policy on social marketing in public health
Since 2004, the British experience of a national
policy on social marketing in public health presents itself as a very good
guide, involving numerous health behaviour change interventions with proofed
results. All the concepts, processes, institutions, and steps of that British
policy can provide a good contribution for other countries, according to proper
knowledge, good policy transfer and proper implementation.
4.
My
contribution
During
my life experience on social marketing, I have followed and studied
systematically that British policy (see Santos, 2016) and social marketing for
public health, and I am sure that I can provide a useful contribution to your
Think Thank, introducing knowledge and advices, providing learning and training,
promoting and participating in specific research, informing policy and health
systems design, and supporting evaluation processes, always according to your
needs and goals.
References
Andreasen, A.
R. (2006). Social Marketing in the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Gordon, R., McDermott, L., Stead, M. & Angus, K. (2006). «The effectiveness of social marketing
interventions for health improvement: what’s the evidence?». Public Health,
120 (12), pp. 1133-1139.
Helmig,
B. & Thaler, J. (2010). «On the effectiveness of social marketing: what
do we really know?». Journal of Nonprofit
& Public Sector Marketing, 22 (4) , pp. 264-287.
Kotler,
P. & Zaltman, G. (1971). «Social marketing: an approach to planned
social change». Journal of Marketing, 35 (July), pp. 3-12.
WHO,
World Health Organization (1946). «Preamble to the Constitution of the World
Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference». New York:
Official Records of the World Health Organization, nº 2.
Santos,
C. O. (2016). Social
Marketing in a Country: The British Experience. Charleston, SC:
CreateSpace.
