How is an effective health promotion campaign designed to change behaviour and norms?
Design and justify a health promotion campaign that uses the Ottawa Charter action areas to build resilience and shift social norms in the post-schooling transition
A QCE Health Unit 4 answer on designing a health promotion campaign, covering the principles of health promotion, applying the Ottawa Charter, targeting and message design, and how to justify campaign decisions with evidence.
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What this dot point is asking
Unit 4 asks you to design a health promotion campaign, not just describe one. QCAA wants you to apply the Ottawa Charter, target a defined audience in the post-schooling transition, and justify each design decision with evidence. "Design and justify" is the key: every choice (the audience, the channel, the message, the action areas) must be explained against the issue and the evidence. The strongest campaigns aim beyond awareness, toward changed behaviour and shifted social norms.
The answer
What health promotion is
Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health, as defined in the Ottawa Charter. Effective health promotion does not just inform; it changes the conditions, norms and skills that drive behaviour. That is why a single poster is weak and a multi-strand campaign is strong.
Define the issue and audience
Start by defining a priority issue and a specific audience within the post-schooling transition (for example, school leavers managing new independence). Use data to establish the issue and to profile the audience: their risk and protective factors, where they get information, and what messages they trust. A campaign aimed at "everyone" reaches no one; precise targeting is rewarded.
Apply the Ottawa Charter
Build the campaign across the five action areas so the strands reinforce each other:
- Build healthy public policy: organisational or institutional policy that supports the goal.
- Create supportive environments: settings that make the healthy choice easy.
- Strengthen community action: peer-led and community-led involvement.
- Develop personal skills: education and skill-building for the audience.
- Reorient health services: linking the audience to relevant services.
A campaign that combines policy, environment and community action is far stronger than one that only develops personal skills, because it changes the conditions, not just the knowledge.
Design the message
Effective messages are tailored to the audience, evidence-based, and built on protective factors rather than fear alone. Use channels the audience actually uses, frame messages around social norms (most people do the healthy thing), and make a clear call to action. Salutogenic framing, emphasising strengths and what builds health, fits the course approach better than purely scaring people.
Justify and plan evaluation
Justification is where marks are won. For each decision, explain why it suits the issue, the audience and the evidence. Then plan evaluation: set criteria and measures so you can judge reach, engagement and effect. The RE-AIM framework (reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, maintenance) is a useful evaluation lens, as is the diffusion of innovations idea that new norms spread through a population over time via early adopters. A campaign you cannot evaluate is incomplete.