MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia.
BMC Public Health. 2024 Feb 26;24(1):620. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-18095-8.
Globally, sexually transmissible infections (STIs) continue to disproportionately affect young people. Regular STI testing is an important public health strategy but remains low among this age group. Raising awareness of testing is an essential step and requires effective interventions designed for young people. To inform the development of effective interventions that promote STI testing among young people, we conducted a systematic literature review to describe the social marketing and visual design components commonly found in STI testing interventions and explore associations of these components with intervention effectiveness.
We used a systemic review methodology to identify peer-reviewed articles that met pre-defined inclusion criteria. Social marketing and visual component analyses were conducted using structured data extraction tools and coding schemes, based on the eight key social marketing principles and 28 descriptive dimensions for visual analysis.
18 studies focusing on 13 separate interventions met the inclusion criteria. Most interventions used photograph-based images, using conventionally attractive actors, positioned centrally and making direct eye contact to engage the viewer. The majority of interventions featured text sparingly and drew on a range of tones (e.g. serious, humorous, positive, reassuring, empowering and informative) and three interventions used sexualised content. Four articles explicitly stated that the interventions was informed by social marketing principles, with two explicitly referencing all eight principles. Around half of the articles reported using a formal theoretical framework, but most were considered to have theoretical constructs implicit in interventions materials. Four articles provided detailed information regarding developmental consumer research or pre-testing. All articles suggested segmentation and development of materials specifically for young people. Explicit consideration of motivation and competition was lacking across all articles. This study found that there were some design elements common to interventions which were considered more effective. High social marketing complexity (where interventions met at least seven of the 11 criteria for complexity) seemed to be associated with more effective interventions.
Our findings suggest that the incorporation of social marketing principles, could be more important for intervention effectiveness than specific elements of visual design. Effective and systematic use of social marketing principles may help to inform future evidence-informed and theoretically based interventions and should be employed within sexual health improvement efforts.
在全球范围内，性传播感染（STIs）继续不成比例地影响年轻人。定期进行 STI 检测是一项重要的公共卫生策略，但在该年龄段人群中的检测率仍然很低。提高对检测的认识是至关重要的一步，需要针对年轻人设计有效的干预措施。为了为年轻人制定促进 STI 检测的有效干预措施提供信息，我们进行了系统的文献综述，以描述 STI 检测干预措施中常见的社会营销和视觉设计组成部分，并探讨这些组成部分与干预效果的关联。
我们使用系统综述方法来确定符合预定义纳入标准的同行评审文章。使用结构化数据提取工具和编码方案进行社会营销和视觉成分分析，这些工具和方案基于八项关键社会营销原则和视觉分析的 28 个描述性维度。
有 18 项研究聚焦于 13 项独立的干预措施，符合纳入标准。大多数干预措施使用基于照片的图像，使用传统上有吸引力的演员，居中放置并直接眼神交流以吸引观众。大多数干预措施都很少使用文字，并借鉴了各种语气（例如严肃、幽默、积极、安慰、赋权和信息丰富），有三个干预措施使用了性化内容。有四篇文章明确表示干预措施是基于社会营销原则的，其中两篇明确提到了所有八项原则。大约一半的文章报告使用了正式的理论框架，但大多数文章都认为干预措施材料中隐含了理论构建。有四篇文章提供了有关发展性消费者研究或预测试的详细信息。所有文章都建议针对年轻人分段和开发材料。所有文章都缺乏对动机和竞争的明确考虑。本研究发现，干预措施中存在一些被认为更有效的共同设计元素。高社会营销复杂性（干预措施满足至少 11 项复杂性标准中的 7 项）似乎与更有效的干预措施相关。
我们的研究结果表明，社会营销原则的纳入可能比视觉设计的特定元素对干预效果更为重要。社会营销原则的有效和系统应用可能有助于为未来基于证据和理论的干预措施提供信息，并应在性健康改善工作中使用。
