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A Practical, Cost-effective Method for Recruiting People Into Healthy Eating Behavior Programs

INTRODUCTION: The population impact of programs designed to develop healthy eating behaviors is limited by the number of people who use them.  Most public health providers and researchers rely on purchased mass media, which can be expensive, on public service announcements, or clinic-based recruitme...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: McDonald, Paul W
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2007
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1893170/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17362617
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author McDonald, Paul W
author_facet McDonald, Paul W
author_sort McDonald, Paul W
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description INTRODUCTION: The population impact of programs designed to develop healthy eating behaviors is limited by the number of people who use them.  Most public health providers and researchers rely on purchased mass media, which can be expensive, on public service announcements, or clinic-based recruitment, which can have limited reach. Few studies offer assistance for selecting high-outreach and low-cost strategies to promote healthy eating programs. The purpose of this study was 1) to determine whether classified newspaper advertising is an effective and efficient method of recruiting participants into a healthy eating program and 2) to determine whether segmenting messages by transtheoretical stage of change would help engage individuals at all levels of motivation to change their eating behavior. METHODS: For 5 days in 1997, three advertisements corresponding to different stages of change were placed in a Canadian newspaper with a daily circulation of 75,000. RESULTS: There were 282 eligible people who responded to newspaper advertisements, and the cost was Can $1.11 (U.S. $0.72) per recruit. This cost compares favorably with the cost efficiency of mass media, direct mail, and other common promotional methods. Message type was correlated with respondent's stage of change, and this correlation suggested that attempts to send different messages to different audience segments were successful. DISCUSSION: Classified advertisements appear to be a highly cost-efficient method for recruiting a diverse range of participants into healthy eating programs and research about healthy eating.
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spelling pubmed-18931702007-07-03 A Practical, Cost-effective Method for Recruiting People Into Healthy Eating Behavior Programs McDonald, Paul W Prev Chronic Dis Original Research INTRODUCTION: The population impact of programs designed to develop healthy eating behaviors is limited by the number of people who use them.  Most public health providers and researchers rely on purchased mass media, which can be expensive, on public service announcements, or clinic-based recruitment, which can have limited reach. Few studies offer assistance for selecting high-outreach and low-cost strategies to promote healthy eating programs. The purpose of this study was 1) to determine whether classified newspaper advertising is an effective and efficient method of recruiting participants into a healthy eating program and 2) to determine whether segmenting messages by transtheoretical stage of change would help engage individuals at all levels of motivation to change their eating behavior. METHODS: For 5 days in 1997, three advertisements corresponding to different stages of change were placed in a Canadian newspaper with a daily circulation of 75,000. RESULTS: There were 282 eligible people who responded to newspaper advertisements, and the cost was Can $1.11 (U.S. $0.72) per recruit. This cost compares favorably with the cost efficiency of mass media, direct mail, and other common promotional methods. Message type was correlated with respondent's stage of change, and this correlation suggested that attempts to send different messages to different audience segments were successful. DISCUSSION: Classified advertisements appear to be a highly cost-efficient method for recruiting a diverse range of participants into healthy eating programs and research about healthy eating. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2007-03-15 /pmc/articles/PMC1893170/ /pubmed/17362617 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is a publication of the U.S. Government. This publication is in the public domain and is therefore without copyright. All text from this work may be reprinted freely. Use of these materials should be properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
McDonald, Paul W
A Practical, Cost-effective Method for Recruiting People Into Healthy Eating Behavior Programs
title A Practical, Cost-effective Method for Recruiting People Into Healthy Eating Behavior Programs
title_full A Practical, Cost-effective Method for Recruiting People Into Healthy Eating Behavior Programs
title_fullStr A Practical, Cost-effective Method for Recruiting People Into Healthy Eating Behavior Programs
title_full_unstemmed A Practical, Cost-effective Method for Recruiting People Into Healthy Eating Behavior Programs
title_short A Practical, Cost-effective Method for Recruiting People Into Healthy Eating Behavior Programs
title_sort practical, cost-effective method for recruiting people into healthy eating behavior programs
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1893170/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17362617
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