A method proposal for determining health communication campaigns? message contents

Persuasive communication campaigns has great significance for many health-related issues. One of the advantages of these mass media campaigns is their high audience accessability and reachability among the public. Research has indicated that when aimed to raise awareness or knowledge about a health topic, these campaigns are quite effective. However, when behavior (or behavioral intention) is aimed to change, the effectiveness frequently remains low.This thesis is focused on the question how to decide what to say in a communication campaign. The goal is to search for ways of selecting effective persuasive campaign messages in order to reach campaign goals. Accordingly, the hypothesis that two independent variables, belief strength and involvement with the behavior, moderate the persuasiveness of campaign messages is developed.In the clear, when the people have strong beliefs and high involvements, a communication strategy that does not match with the most important behavioral determinant should be used in the campaign. However, when the people have weak beliefs, a communication strategy matching with the most important behavioral determinant should be used, without considering the involvement level. These hypothesis are tested in the field of health communication on a case study about cervical cancer vaccine and all accepted.In the research, CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviewing) is used to collect data on surveys. The study sample, which is derived through a method close to probability sampling, is consisted of mothers who live in İstanbul and have at least one 11-26 year-old-daughter(N=145). Multiple linear regression, decision trees and one way ANOVA is used for the analysis.