University of Cambridge, UK.
University of Cambridge, UK.
Soc Sci Med. 2018 Dec;218:1-12. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.09.037. Epub 2018 Oct 5.
Increasing the prices of products that harm health is an effective intervention for changing behaviour to improve health but public support for such interventions is generally low. The current paper investigates whether communicating evidence of a policy's effectiveness at tackling the focal problem could increase support. Across three studies we develop an infographic for communicating quantitative evidence of the effectiveness of a hypothetical tax to tackle childhood obesity. We investigate first, whether communicating evidence of effectiveness increases (a) perceived effectiveness (Studies 1,2,3) and (b) support for the policy, and second, whether any increase in perceived effectiveness mediates an increase in support (Studies 1 & 3). In all three studies (combined N = 9654) communicating evidence of effectiveness for the intervention increased perceived effectiveness. In Study 1, communicating evidence did not change support for the policy. Variations of the infographic were developed in Study 2 with one emerging as clearer and easier to comprehend. This infographic was therefore used in Study 3 in which it increased support for the tax from 45% to 49%, an effect that was mediated by perceived effectiveness. The effect sizes were small but probably meaningful at a population level. The results of these three studies suggest the potential for presenting quantitative evidence of intervention effectiveness to increase public support. Much uncertainty remains about the most effective ways of presenting this evidence, whether similar effects are achieved by presenting unquantified evidence and whether larger effects might be achieved by presenting information other than effectiveness.
提高损害健康产品的价格是改变行为以改善健康的有效干预措施，但公众普遍对这类干预措施的支持度较低。本文探讨了传达政策在解决焦点问题方面有效性的证据是否可以增加支持。通过三项研究，我们为传达解决儿童肥胖问题的假设税收政策的有效性的定量证据开发了一个信息图。我们首先调查了传达有效性证据是否会增加（a）感知有效性（研究 1、2、3）和（b）对政策的支持，其次，调查了感知有效性的任何增加是否会中介对政策的支持增加（研究 1 和 3）。在所有三项研究（综合 N=9654）中，传达干预措施有效性的证据都提高了感知有效性。在研究 1 中，传达证据并没有改变对政策的支持。在研究 2 中，对信息图进行了各种变体的开发，其中一个变体更清晰易懂。因此，该信息图在研究 3 中使用，它将税收的支持率从 45%提高到 49%，这一效果是由感知有效性中介的。这些效果的大小虽然很小，但在人群层面上可能具有意义。这三项研究的结果表明，提供干预措施有效性的定量证据可能会增加公众的支持。关于呈现这种证据的最有效方法、呈现非量化证据是否会产生类似效果以及呈现除有效性之外的信息是否会产生更大效果等问题，仍然存在很大的不确定性。
