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This paper briefly describes social marketing for the purpose of differentiating it from other forms of public health practice for which it is often mistaken, and was commissioned to provide a starting point for a conference on the role of social marketing in promoting physical activity and nutrition. To that end, definitions of social marketing are presented, differences between social marketing and educational approaches to behavioral influence are examined, and a brief set of key concepts are suggested. A clear understanding of the two approaches is important in helping program managers decide when, and how best, to use each approach. This paper was commissioned so that conference attendees (Charting the Course for Social Marketing to Promote Diet and Physical Activity, UC Davis, 2002) would have a common point of reference - to debate, to modify, or possibly to accept - with regard to the definition of social marketing. Providing a point of reference was also intended to ensure a productive discussion throughout the conference.

The lack of routine physical activity has become an all too pervasive health threat in the United States. Social marketing can be used directly to promote increased physical activity among people who have access to active living options (e.g., safe and convenient sidewalks or bike paths). A second, albeit indirect, use of social marketing to promote physical activity — and the focus of this article — involves promoting behaviors that influence the built environment for the purpose of increasing people's access to active living options. This use of social marketing involves changing the behavior of consumers, developers, distribution channels (e.g., real estate agents) and policy makers. The approach offers public health and other organizations a disciplined, consumer-focused means of mobilizing their available resources in a manner that maximizes the odds of creating active living communities. These means include understanding the competition, understanding target markets, creating mutually beneficial exchanges, segmenting markets and targeting them based on anticipated return. This article identifies specific opportunities for applying the social marketing approach to create active living communities, and identifies opportunities at the state and national level that will enhance the effectiveness of local efforts.

The research described in this article tested the social cognitive hypotheses that self-efficacy can be enhanced more effectively by symbolically modeling risk reduction information and by encouraging its cognitive rehearsal than by the presentation of risk reduction information alone. Young unmarried women (N = 138) viewed one of three videos: AIDS information only, information plus modeling, or information plus modeling with cognitive rehearsal. The hypotheses were confirmed at both posttest and one month follow-up: AIDS prevention self-efficacy was most improved among participants who watched the information plus modeling with rehearsal video, while participants viewing the information plus modeling video exhibited an intermediate level of improvement. Certain AIDS preventive behaviors, including condom purchases and conversations with friends about safe sex, also exhibited significant treatment-related changes at follow-up. These results indicate that symbolic modeling and cognitive rehearsal of modeled information are effective strategies for enhancing perceptions of self-efficacy through televised media.

In a within-subjects design (n = 30), a sampling of rational and emotional public service announcements related to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was tested for memorability. Subjects' cognitive involvement with the issue of AIDS was measured with a four-item scale (alpha = .86). Analysis of variance indicated a significant main effect of appeal (p < .05), emotional messages being more memorable, and a significant Appeal x Involvement interaction (p <.05). Subjects with low involvement remembered emotional messages better than they remembered rational messages. However, highly involved subjects exhibited no appeal-related memory differences. Emotional messages were also significantly more effective in stimulating a desire to learn more about AIDS (p < .01). These results extend and lend partial support to the elaboration likelihood model and illustrate the importance of issue involvement as a audience segmentation characteristic.

Climate change has triggered a global public health emergency that, unless adequately addressed, is likely to become a multigenerational public health catastrophe. The policy actions needed to limit global warming deliver a wide range of public health benefits above and beyond those that will result from limiting climate change. Moreover, these health benefits are immediate and local, addressing one of the most vexing challenges of climate solutions: that the benefits of greenhouse gas reduction are seen as long‐term and global, which are remote from the concerns of many jurisdictions. In this commentary, we identify roles that health professionals and health organizations can play, individually and collectively, to advance equitable climate and health policies in their communities, health systems, states, and nations. Ultimately, health voices can work across national boundaries to influence the world's commitments to the Paris Agreement, arguably the world's most important public health goal.

CLIMATEGATE UNDERMINED BELIEF IN GLOBAL WARMING AMONG MANY AMERICAN TV METEOROLOGISTS Television (TV) meteorologists are a potentially important source of informal climate change education in that most American adults watch local TV news and consider TV weather reporters to be a trusted source of global warming information. In January 2010, we used a Web-based survey of TV meteorologists nationwide to assess the impact of "Climategate" the unauthorized release of; and news stories about, e-mails between climate scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom on their beliefs about climate change; the response rate was 52%. Most respondents (77%) had followed the story; 42% of those who did indicated it made them more certain that global warming is not happening. Conservatives (57%) were more likely than moderates (43%) and liberals (15%) to endorse this view (chi(2) = 49.89, p < 0.001), and those who believed global warming is not happening (74%), or who did not know (46%), were more likely to endorse the view than those who believed it is happening (25%; chi(2) = 108.59, p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that political ideology, belief in global warming, and gender each predicted a negative impact of the story, but certifications from professional associations did not. Furthermore, respondents who followed the story reported less trust in climate scientists (2.8 versus 3.2; p < 0.01), and in the IPCC (2.2 versus 2.7; p < 0.01), than those who had not. We conclude that, at least temporarily, Climategate has likely impeded efforts to encourage some weathercasters to embrace the role of climate change educator. These results also suggest that many TV weathercasters responded to Climategate more through the lens of political ideology than through the lens of meteorology. (Page 31) ; National Science Foundation DRL-0917566 ; Journalism

This is the second of two reports about American adolescents and climate change. In the first report, we described teens' knowledge, attitudes, and sources of climate change information. In this report, we analyze their responses to one important source of this information –the NASA website climate.NASA.gov. The NASA website is one of the primary sources provided by the federal government to inform the public on the issue of climate change. In this report we assess how adolescents feel about the website, how it affects their climate change knowledge and attitudes, and whether some adolescents are more responsive to the website than others, based on their age, gender and interest in science. ; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant: NNX17AC80G)