Marketing strategies nurses can employ to promote health

Marketing strategies are employed to ensure the success of new products, services or programs. Both profit and non-profit organizations have used social marketing strategies to inform, to motivate interest, and to engage the involvement of the consumer. A client-dependent health care system did not find it necessary to market services, but a health care system that encourages clients to choose the most appropriate health promotion service available must market services. Nurses are in the business of promoting the health of clients. Therefore, it is essential that nurses become familiar with, and involved in, the development of marketing plans and strategies. The connection between the four variables of the marketing mix (product, promotion, place, and price) and promoting the health of clients is described. A case example recapitulating the marketing strategies employed to raise public awareness of a self-help group for family caregivers is related, the marketing response is evaluated, and future recommendations are proposed.     

Salient hopes and fears: social marketing to promote human services

The application of social marketing principles to the promotion of human services programs is illustrated in this paper. As part of a household interview survey, 176 respondents were asked to name their hopes and fears for their lives. Responses generated by these questions are reported briefly. These findings then are interpreted from the perspective of social marketing theory, and resulting implications for the design of strategies to promote human service programs are discussed. Other areas in which social marketing theory may aid the planning and delivery of human services are mentioned.     

The use of marketing techniques to facilitate acceptance of prevention programs: Case example.

There is a growing interest in marketing in contemporary psychology, but the application of marketing has largely been limited to remediative services. However, marketing techniques have considerable potential for facilitating the acceptance of prevention programs. A case example illustrates the use of market assessment as information for the marketing of preventive parenting programs for fathers, working parents, single parents, and stepparents. Three hundred parents were surveyed via a questionnaire that taped seven areas: general family concept; family communication and the balancing of family roles; previous service use; interest in participating in parent programs; factors bearing on the decision to participate; responsiveness to various forms of advertising; and demographics. The results are discussed in terms of how they influenced the shaping of four elements of the "marketing mix": product, price, place, and promotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nurse education in competitive markets: the case for relationship marketing

Since the National Health Service reforms of the late 1980s, nurse education has been increasingly subject to market forces. This new competitive environment presents not only threat, but also challenge and opportunity. Providers of nurse education who recognize the need for market orientation and develop responsive marketing strategies will maximize their potential for market retention and growth. Traditional marketing strategies have considerable limitations for public sector services. The new and growing field of relationship marketing offers nurse education an opportunity to retain and develop profitable relationships with both internal and external markets. This paper reviews the marketing arena in nurse education and proposes context-based qualitative research to ascertain definitive constructs of service quality. Such constructs might then be rooted in a theoretical framework of service quality measurement, and be measured within the disconfirmation paradigm of relationship marketing.     

Marketing Practices of U.S. Contractors

The construction industry possesses characteristics of the production and service industries. This uniqueness requires marketing practices tailored specifically to match the construction market. A questionnaire survey of 65 U.S. contractors was conducted to determine the extent to which they are implementing a modified marketing mix theory that is compatible with the construction industry. The modified marketing mix theory recommends that contractors confront marketing from five perspectives, known as the five P’s of marketing: product, price, promotion, place, and people. This study showed that the five P’s of marketing are used by U.S. contractors in this decreasing order: product, price, place, promotion, and people. According to the survey results, U.S. contractors allocate about 1.5% of their annual revenue to marketing, but they may be spending more than they report. There seem to be only few differences between contractors that negotiate their contracts versus contractors who competitively bid their contracts, larger versus smaller companies, and contractors with a higher success rate in getting new contract awards versus contractors with a lower success rate.     

New Steel Solutions for the Worldwide Car Industry

Steel development as a scientific process requires both metallurgical background and state‐of‐the‐art analysis and testing technology. In the future, we expect much shorter development periods owing to the increased use of computer simulation. Successful developments are the result of consistent team work, both in the steel companies and in the cooperation with automobile producers. Customer involvement at an early stage permits to speed up the development by simultaneous engineering. The success of a material in the market depends more and more on its comprehensive definition by relevant parameters. Scientific technical services form a part of marketing. Modern high‐strength steels are enjoying success and are finding ever more application in new cars.     

Adolescent health, school health activities, community contexts, and health surveys in Sweden

School health activities have been very important in improving adolescent health in Sweden for almost 200 years. In the 1800s, emphasis was on medical services. Vaccination programs and medical examinations became the key issues. Deterioration of adolescent health in the 1960s changed the objectives of both school education and health services to health promotion. Important members of the community followed suit and involvement of the local community has remained a hallmark, even though the extent and direction varies. The subsequent period was characterized by substantial improvement in adolescent health behavior. The latter years of the 1980s and the 1990s saw deterioration of adolescent health behavior. Less emphasis on health promotion, decentralization of school health responsibility from physicians to administrators, and heavy savings directed toward schools were important mediators. Adolescents were also more engaged in international youth cultures with liberal practices, such as drug use. Community surveys of adolescent health behaviors have proven to be important in mobilizing broad local involvement in adolescent health promotion. The lesson learned is that health promotion has to involve as many community members as possible. Coordinating resources and having unified objectives is cost efficient     

Evaluating quality and effectiveness in the promotion of health: approaches and methods of public health and social sciences

Health promotion and health education have often been limited to evaluation of the effectiveness of actions and programmes. However, since 1996 with the Third European Conference on Health Promotion and Education Effectiveness, many researchers have become interested in "quality assessment" and new ways of thinking have emerged. Quality assurance is a concept and activity developed in industry with the objective of increasing production efficiency. There are two distinct approaches: External Standard Inspection (ESI) and Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI). ESI involves establishing criteria of quality, evaluating them and improving whatever needs improvement. CQI views the activity or service as a process and includes the quality assessment as part of the process. This article attempts to answer the questions of whether these methods are sufficient and suitable for operationalising the concepts of evaluation, effectiveness and quality in health promotion and education, whether it is necessary to complement them with other methods, and whether the ESI approach is appropriate. The first section of the article explains that health promotion is based on various paradigms from epidemiology to psychology and anthropology. Many authors warn against the exclusive use of public health disciplines for understanding, implementing and evaluating health promotion. The author argues that in practice, health promotion: -integrates preventive actions with those aiming to maintain and improve health, a characteristic which widens the actions of health promotion from those of classic public health which include essentially an epidemiological or "risk" focus; -aims to replace vertical approaches to prevention with a global approach based on educational sciences; -involves a community approach which includes the individual in a "central position of power" as much in the definition of needs as in the evaluation of services; -includes the participation and socio-political actions which necessitate the use of varied and specific instruments for action and evaluation. With the choice of health promotion ideology, there exist corresponding theories, concepts of quality, and therefore methods and techniques that differ from those used until now. The educational sciences have led to a widening of the definition of process to include both "throughput and input", which has meant that the methods of needs analysis, objective and priority setting and project development in health promotion have become objects of quality assessment. Also, the modes of action and interaction among actors are included, which has led to evaluation of ethical and ideological aspects of projects. The second section of the article discusses quality assessment versus evaluation of effectiveness. Different paradigms of evaluation such as the public health approach based on the measurement of (epidemiological) effectiveness, social marketing and communication, and the anthropological approach are briefly discussed, pointing out that there are many approaches which can both complement and contradict one another. The author explains the difference between impact (the intermediate effects, direct or indirect, planned or not planned, changes in practical or theoretical knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes) and results (final effects of mid to long term changes such as changes in morbidity, mortality, or access to services or cost of health care). He argues that by being too concerned with results of programmes, we have often ignored the issue of impact. Also, by limiting ourselves to evaluating effectiveness (i.e. that the expected effects were obtained), we ignore other possible unexpected, unplanned and positive and negative secondary effects. There are therefore many reasons to: -evaluate all possible effects rather than only those lined to objectives; -evaluate the entire process rather than only the resources, procedures and costs; -evaluate the impact rather than results; -evalu     

Health risks and health promotion for older women: utility of a health promotion diary

Elderly women require health screening and health promotion services from nurses and other health care providers. Nurses serving this population require knowledge of age-specific health screening and health promotion services. A case study from a geriatric nurse practitioner's practice demonstrates the complexity of these activities. A diary of such services can help nurses focus on elderly women's needs for health promotion interventions.     

Food management for the aging population

The older population is becoming more important to our society everyday. These individuals are being studied for their past, present, and potential impact on markets and marketing. Evaluated as a user of products or services in the marketplace or an employee or volunteer within the marketing system, this segment is gaining a visibility and importance. An interview was conducted with five Nutrition Project Directors to obtain an overview of Federally Funded Nutrition Programs for the Elderly. The areas which were highlighted were service delivery, site activities, management styles, barriers to service, clientele composition, food planning and preparation, staffing, USDA funding, coordination, marketing, transportation, and volunteerism. The Second Quarter Service Provider Output Reports for 1991, which are compiled by the Nutrition Projects and submitted to the Area Agency on Aging, were utilized to obtain client profile information (Reports, 1991). The analysis sought to compare the programs offered in the five counties on a number of factors which could be quantified. It was hoped that by looking at the numerical ratios, and depicting them graphically, any trends or unique characteristics of the programs could be identified. In that the percentage of Florida's present elder population (17%) far exceeds the national average (12%) these findings could be utilized by nutrition programs outside of Florida to plan for future funds. Analysis of quantitative information on the five programs yielded information on cost comparisons and on services.     

Mind-body fitness: encouraging prospects for primary and secondary prevention

In recent years health promotion programs have generated many worthwhile psychologic and physiologic benefits but frequently with less than optimal long-term adherence. Incorporating approaches such as mind-body exercise with existing health promotion and cardiac rehabilitation services can improve self-efficacy and long-term adherence to healthy behaviors as well as improve personal stress management skills. Mind-body exercise couples muscular activity with an internally directed focus so that the participant produces a temporary self-contemplative mental state. This internal focus is in contrast to conventional body-centered aerobic and muscular fitness exercise in which there is little or no mindful component. Research on mind-body exercise programs such as yoga and tai chi reveal they have significant mental and physical value. There also are numerous primary and secondary preventive indications for cardiovascular disease in which mind-body exercise can play a primary or complementary role. Mind-body exercise programs will be a welcome and necessary addition to evolving disease management models that focus on self-care and decreased health care use.     

Responsibilities and problems in national health reporting

Complaints about the inadequate data situation in public health services are not new. However, during the course of the past few years there have been significant developments: the board of experts for concerted action in the public health services requested an improvement to the situation and the Federal Government promoted a preliminary study on the establishment of a national health reporting system (GBE) in Germany. Under the responsibility of the Federal Statistics Office, a national GBE is currently being established through further promotion by the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology (BMFT) and the Federal Health Ministry (BMG); the standard users of this system will be both the general public as well as the bodies responsible for health policy and scientific research. In the public health services there exist complete, but improveable data sources or incomplete sources requiring selection; also, new data sources must be won. In establishing the GBE, it is being assumed that public health services participants willing to cooperate already have at their disposal extensive data that does not need to be newly acquired, but does need improved mutual co-ordination. The GBE can be established on this. Further supplementary data acquisition is only being considered for a later stage.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Deadly targeting of women in promoting cigarettes

The history of tobacco marketing portrays a strong relationship between cigarette advertising targeted to women and the rise in the prevalence of women smoking. This article describes how tobacco companies crafted their marketing strategies to obfuscate the growing evidence of the health hazards of tobacco and to circumvent attempts to regulate cigarette advertising. It shows how the tobacco industry understood and capitalized on the women's liberation movement to sell cigarettes as symbols of freedom and emancipation, tracing the creation and promotion of Virginia Slims as a case study. And it documents the unfortunate success of these marketing strategies as reflected in the trends of tobacco use, especially among underage girls, and the commensurate increase in tobacco-related disease and death among women.     

A marketing technique to increase visibility and use of health center counseling services

Marketing a university health-center-based counseling service by giving students promotional items, such as pens, key tags, refrigerator magnets, and self-stick removable note pads bearing telephone numbers and information about counseling services is described. This technique, which resulted in 32% more appointments scheduled and 25% more students being seen during the 1995/96 academic year than had been seen in the 1994/95 academic year, can also be used to increase the use of campus health promotion and medical services.     

Hygienic efficacy in the city design and construction process and the methodological approaches in developing a standards document]

The essence and specific features of marketing are disclosed, based on the results of studies of the drug market. The market of outpatient and hospital services is analyzed using the marketing means. The succession of compartments of the marketing programs applied is presented.     

L'amorce du virage préventif en santé mentale au Québec: Enquête sur les politiques, les structures et les programmes de prévention en santé mentale.

This study represents the Quebec contribution to a Canada-wide survey that sought to determine the status of mental health prevention programs as health services undergo major restructuring. Similar to the Canada-wide survey, data on prevention policies, resources and programs were collected from provincial authorities who were responsible for mental health promotion. Data were also obtained from regional health and social services boards (Régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux) which were in the process of being formed and from other departments which offered mental health services. Although the data support the vitality of prevention programs within government departments they also suggest that those prevention programs may need greater administrative structure and that there are gaps between government promises and commitments, notably with respect to ongoing financing for prevention programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integrating an internship into a market-driven psychology practice.

The article describes how a psychologist-led, market-driven, entrepreneurial practice provides an excellent setting for an internship. Interns learn about the following: the role of accrediting organizations, such as the Joint Commission of Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the National Committee on Quality Assurance; quality improvement; utilization improvement; performance improvement; cutting-edge service delivery systems; how to assess market needs; capitation; marketing services; how to work as part of a multidisciplinary team; how to integrate behavioral health care and medical health care; provider networks; and how to assess and use consumer satisfaction and clinical outcomes for service improvement. Interns develop scientist-practitioner skills and coping skills for innovating in response to a rapidly changing marketplace. The article also addresses costs and logistics for market-driven practices sponsoring an internship program. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Health promotion and empowerment: reflections on professional practice

Recent reformulations of health promotion focus on empowerment as both a means and an end in health promotion practice. Both concepts, however, are rarely examined for their assumptions about social change processes or the potential of community groups, professionals, and institutions to create healthier living situations. This article attends to some of these assumptions, expressing ideas generated during 6 years of professional training workshops with over 2,500 community health practitioners in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. The article first argues that health promotion is not a social movement but a professional and bureaucratic response to the new knowledge challenges of social movements. As such, it has both empowering and disempowering aspects. The article analyzes empowerment as a dialectical relation in which power is simultaneously given and taken, and illustrates this in the context of health promotion programs. A model of an empowering professional (institutional) health promotion practice is presented, in which linkages among personal services, small group supports, community organizing, coalition advocacy, and political action are made explicit. Practice examples are provided to illustrate each level of the empowering relation, and the article concludes with a brief discussion of the model's educational and organizational utility.     

Object-Oriented Model for Customer-Building Company Interaction in Mass Customization Environment

The customization of products and services—characterized by a customer-integrated process for product design, manufacturing, marketing, and support services—now represents an important competitive strategy in business environments. This trend has given birth to a new concept in the operations management field, called mass customization, which refers to the ability to provide individually designed products and services to every customer through high process flexibility and integration. This business approach has been identified as a competitive strategy by an increasing number of companies, to which the building industry is no exception. Buyers are eager to purchase flats (apartments) with high levels of customization that contain a high number of items designed and built in accordance with their needs and desires. This paper addresses the design of an object-oriented model to allow an agile interaction between consumers and companies, toward the implementation of mass customization in the building sector. The object-oriented model provides a dynamic and flexible tool to support company-customer information exchange and to keep the dispersed information consistent.