Use of Social Marketing Promotional Strategies to Create Awareness of Worksite Health Promotion Programs: A Survey of Program Coordinators.

摘要

There is growing interest in evidence-based research supporting worksite health promotion to help alleviate rising healthcare costs associated with unhealthy lifestyle choices of employees. Worksite health promotion programs can be designed and promoted to help prevent and reduce the negative effects of an unhealthy workforce. With that, the purpose of this research study was to assess how social marketing promotional strategies were used by worksite health promotion program coordinators in organizations located throughout the upper Midwest region of the United States. A 12-question survey collected basic demographic information on each participant, in addition to the way social marketing promotional strategies were used by each program coordinator within the given organization. The mean age of the program coordinators ( n = 12, 83% female) was 38 years. Promotional strategies most commonly used included advertising (n = 9), personal selling ( n = 6), publicity (n = 8), and sales promotion (n = 6). Data reported that only 2 of the 12 respondents using social marketing promotional strategies showed some Social Marketing Theory training. Although most program coordinators used social marketing promotional strategies to create awareness of worksite health promotion programs, there is a greater need for Social Marketing Theory training for program coordinators within the workplace. In order to establish awareness regarding worksite health promotion programs and the underlying issues that create a need for such programs such as, rising health care costs, abstenteeism, low employee productivity, and preventable employee illness, additional research in this area is advisable.