Healthy Living - Methods of Health Promotion - Evaluation (3)

Research Support - Research has shown that media campaigns are effective, and even more so when supported with a change in legislation. The use of minimal fear can increase a campaigns’ effectiveness, but too much fear stops the message getting across. The studies in this area are generally experimental allowing some causal relationships to be assumed, e.g. between implementing a chip pan fire campaign and the reduction in chip-pan fires. However, quasi-experimental designs do not allow full control of variables as they are in a natural environment. Means that potential extraneous variables could account for the results, e.g. the reduction in chip pan fires could be caused by a reduction in number of people owning chip pans. Higher confidence in the results of J&F – lab exp, full control of variables and use of control group

Usefulness - Health promotion is expensive – whether it is the cost of advertising or the cost of passing an act of legislation. However, people with unhealthy lifestyles cost the NHS millions of pounds per year. The cost of health promotion is significantly less than this.However, its easy to target many people at once by using either media campaigns or a change in the law.Can also tailor campaigns to target specific groups.

Ethics - Is it ethical to try and dictate health behaviours? Is it justifiable as it is for the individual’s own benefit? Should individuals be allowed to make their own choices when it comes to adopting health behaviours? Could be argued governments have a duty of care to ensure their citizens are as healthy as possible.