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Using Social Marketing to Increase Occupational Health and Safety
RS2005-SC05
Final Report Date: August 2008
| Principal Investigator: | Anne M. Lavack (University of Regina) |
| Co-investigators: | Michael D. Basil, Debra Z. Basil, Sameer Deshpande (University of Lethbridge , Alberta) James (Jim) H. Mintz (Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing, Ottawa, Ontario) |
For more information about this project, please contact Dr. Anne M. Lavack.
Issue
Male workers aged 18-24 have the highest rate of injury in B.C. – higher than all other age and gender groups. In 2004, a WorkSafeBC community stakeholder workshop recommended using social marketing campaigns to promote workplace health and safety to young workers. This research project was intended to support the development of such a social marketing campaign, by examining young worker focused occupational health and safety (OH&S) communications materials from other jurisdictions, and determining how young workers respond to a sample of these materials.
Key findings
- Fear appeals were used by over half of the 250 social marketing communication materials received. However, in most cases, fear appeals were not used in combination with the four principles (self efficacy, response efficacy, severity, and susceptibility) that are believed to be necessary for fear appeals to be effective.
- The controlled online experiment with young adult males in B.C. (aged 18-24) demonstrated that fear appeal based ads were more effective when they included three of those principles - self-efficacy, susceptibility, and severity – together in the ad.
- The focus group discussions revealed that young workers may view the promoted safety behaviours as unrealistic due to environmental constraints in their workplaces, such as being hurried by a boss or the fear of being called a wimp by coworkers. Social marketing aimed at young workers should consider such constraints and be sure to promote safety behaviours that realistically could be performed in a young person’s everyday work environment.
- The results of this study are relevant to developing future social marketing campaigns aimed at young workers.
Objectives
- To conduct a content analysis of the communication components of occupational health and safety (OH&S) social marketing campaigns aimed at young workers (especially males aged 18-24) in North America
- To determine the attitudes of the target group (employed B.C. males aged 18-24) toward a sample of these OH&S social marketing communication materials
- To develop recommendations for future OH&S social marketing campaigns aimed at the male 18-24 age group
Method
Content analysis
Workers’ compensation boards and occupational health and safety organizations throughout North America were contacted to request the sharing of young worker focused OH&S communication materials that had been used within the last five (5) years. In total, 200 organizations were contacted and 109 responded. Over 250 items were received including materials from web sites, newspaper and magazine ads, TV ads, radio ads, outdoor posters/billboards, workplace posters, and leaflets/brochures/hand-outs/instructional materials.
The materials were analysed to determine:
- Type of communication material
- Main message and sub-messages
- Behaviour promoted
- Discussion on product, price, and place
- How message is aimed at young workers
- Tone and style of message (e.g., informational; rational; fear appeal; guilt appeal, etc.)
- Use of pictures or graphics
- Other relevant categories
The data were analyzed using SPSS software.
Online experiment
After the content analysis, an experiment was conducted on-line with 222 young men between the ages of 18-24 from B.C. Materials from the content analysis were categorized according to their level of use of four principles known to make fear appeal ads more effective: self-efficacy, response-efficacy, severity and susceptibility. Participants viewed materials and responded to questions about their responses.
Focus Groups
A representative sample of the 250 communications materials was discussed with B.C. males aged 18-24, in four focus groups of 10 to 12 participants. Most of the questions focused on how participants reacted to the communication materials, while some additional questions explored participants’ attitudes and motivations regarding workplace safety.Results
Over half of the social marketing communication materials involved fear appeals. Less than one-third of the materials using fear appeals included the four variables of the Extended Parallel Process Model (severity, susceptibility, response efficacy, and self-efficacy), which are believed to be necessary for a fear appeal to be effective. According to this model, protection motivation is maximized when: (1) the threat to health is severe (high perceived severity); (2) the individual feels susceptible (high perceived susceptibility); (3) the adaptive response is believed to be an effective means of averting the threat (high response efficacy); and (4) the person is confident in his or her abilities to complete successfully the adaptive response (high self-efficacy).
The controlled online experiment with young adult males in B.C. (aged 18-24) demonstrated that including severity, susceptibility, and self-efficacy together in an appeal greatly increased its effectiveness.
The focus group discussions revealed that workplace safety social marketing communication materials may not accurately reflect the reality of young workers’ jobs. Sometimes it does not seem realistic to perform the safety behaviours promoted, given the constraints of everyday work environments, such as being hurried by a boss or the risk of being seen as a wimp by co-workers.
The desire to work faster was the main reason cited for not performing safety behaviours.
Focus group participants also viewed safety meetings as an effective way to reinforce the importance of safety. Penalties for failure to comply and incentives for compliance were both seen as effective tools.Conclusions
Based on the content analysis, over half of social marketing communication materials dealing with workplace safety appear to involve fear appeals.
Ads that use fear appeals should include the principles of self-efficacy, susceptibility, and severity, as well as another component identified through this research – “environmental efficacy”. Environmental efficacy in fear appeals means ensuring that the behaviour promoted is one that realistically can be performed in everyday work environments.
Future directions
The results of this study are relevant to developing future social marketing campaigns aimed at young workers.
Publications
Lavack, Anne M., Sherry Magnuson, Debra Z. Basil, Sameer Deshpande, James H. Mintz, and Michael Basil (2006), “Using Social Marketing to Improve Workplace Safety: A Qualitative Analysis,” presented at the Social Marketing Advances in Theory and Research (SMART) conference, Banff, AB, October 19-21, 2006.
Lavack, Anne M., Sherry Magnuson, Debra Z. Basil, Sameer Deshpande, James H. Mintz, and Michael D. Basil (2008, forthcoming), “Enhancing Occupational Health and Safety in Young Workers: The Role of Social Marketing,” International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, special issue on Social Marketing.
Basil, Debra Z., Michael D. Basil, Sameer Deshpande, Anne M. Lavack, James H. Mintz, & Sherry Magnuson (2007), “Using the Parallel Process Model to Assess Social Marketing Communications to Young Male Workers,” presentation at the National Social Marketing Conference, London, England, September 24-25, 2007. (Abstract refereed)