Violence Prevention Messages for Preadolescents in Puerto Rico: A Social Marketing Challenge

Public relations practitioners many times seek to influence their audience's behavior to address a determined problem. Social marketing and education-entertainment are two public relations' strategies, proven useful to treat public health problems.

The purpose of this investigation was to study the relationship between the drug and alcohol use prevention messages received by preadolescent students in Puerto Rico (PR), and their reported expression of violence through fighting. Researchers carried out a secondary analysis ofConsulta Juvenil V: preadolescentesdatabase – a bi-annual survey financed by the Administration for Mental Health Services and Against Addiction (ASSMCA, Spanish acronym) and commissioned to theUniversidad del Caribein PR. It comprised a representative 7,939-student sample of the total fifth and sixth grade population (N=118,658) in PR from 2000 to 2002.

Forty-one percent of fifth and sixth grade students in PR reported fighting during the year previous to the survey's implementation. This study – the first known of its type with an all school-based sample in PR – found that receiving alcohol and drug use prevention messages serve as a protective factor against reports of fighting with statistical significance.

Based on these findings and the literature reviewed, it is recommended to use social marketing and education-entertainment as public relations' strategies to address school-violence as a public health problem in Puerto Rico.