Examination of health content of consumer research surveys for use in health communication planning

Consumer survey data can provide useful information for quantitative audience analysis in health communication planning and social marketing. The National Center for Health Marketing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently licenses syndicated data from Simmons Market Research Bureau and from Forrester Research. The Simmons National Consumer Survey is conducted in the US annually and has a total 25,000 respondents. The Forrester Technographics survey is conducted annually in North America with 46,000 US respondents. These surveys cover a wide range of topics related to media habits, lifestyle, products, and use of internet and electronics which can be useful in communication planning. These surveys also contain health-related demographics and self reports of health conditions, such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, health behaviors, such as smoking, and risk factor-related related items such as BMI. This health information allows for tailored public health communication planning for particular populations of interest. To assess the degree to which these consumer data complement scientific epidemiological data on these populations, the prevalence of the consumer survey health-related items and their relationship to demographic variables is compared with this information as obtained through CDC surveys such as the BRFSS and NHIS surveys. Communication applications will be described. Effects of different survey methodologies will be discussed.