The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #51966

Martin Fishbein, PhD, Public Policy Center, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 3620 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, 215-555-1234, mfishbein@asc.upenn.edu and Marco Yzer, PhD, The Amsterdam School of Communications Research, University of Amsterdam, Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

This session will summarize the innovative health communication work that currently is being done by Drs. Fishbein, Cappella, and Hornik at the University of Pennsylvania on youth anti-drug campaigns. These senior communication scholars are engaged in a series of theory-driven experiments designed to test what sorts of messages and in what contexts anti-drug messages are most likely to be effective. At the same time they are working on the evaluation of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. The evaluation is driven by a theoretical model defining how the campaign is expected to lead to change in behavior. They will present the theoretical arguments behind their work and the fit of the data to those theories, while emphasizing the implications of theory for public health communication practice.

Learning Objectives: By the end of the presentation, participants will

• Understand how behavior theories (like the Theory of Reasoned Action) and media priming theory offer two accounts of how a communication can ultimately change behavior, and
• Understand the implications of those two theories for how a communication campaign might be constructed.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.