Public Education Campaigns: Overview
When done well, public education campaigns can have a huge impact on individual attitudes and community norms.
When planned strategically and executed well, public education campaigns can change individual attitudes and community norms regarding the acceptability of tobacco use, exposure to secondhand smoke and tobacco industry practices.
As attitudes and norms change, behaviors can change too, resulting in fewer youth initiating tobacco use, more tobacco users quitting, and fewer people smoking around non-smokers. As attitudes and norms change, the environment also becomes more favorable for tobacco control policy changes, such as smoke-free workplace laws, increased tobacco taxes, advertising bans, strengthened cigarette pack warning labels, and services and treatment to help tobacco users quit.
Ideally, public education campaigns would be implemented within the context of a comprehensive tobacco control program. However, experience has shown that campaigns alone can be effective as a first key step to influence the public’s attitudes and beliefs about tobacco use and cause them to become more open to other tobacco control interventions as a result.
Public education campaigns must use multiple channels to reach the target audience(s) with evidence-based messages. To reach key audiences effectively, a campaign should consist of:
- A variety of paid media efforts such as television, radio, print, Internet, cinema, and billboards;
- Public relations efforts, including media outreach to generate news coverage of tobacco issues;
- Outreach to community organizations such as schools, religious institutions and civic organizations; and
- Collateral materials, such as t-shirts, buttons and posters. These can be an important part of a public education campaign if developed with strategic messaging and distributed broadly.
