Review of public information campaigns addressing youth risk-taking

A report to the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme in 2000 by Patrick Shanahan, Barry Elliott and Nicole Dahlgren.

This report is the property of the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme.

Contents of Report

Do those ads which graphically show the medical consequences of smoking frighten young people into stopping smoking? Or do young people think the ads are a joke? One of the aims of latest National Youth Affairs Research Scheme (NYARS) project which produced the report Review of Public Information Campaigns Addressing Youth Risk-Taking was to identify the extent to which public information campaigns have succeeded in achieving behavioural change and sustaining safer behaviours by young people.

Other tasks of the project were to provide guidelines for the development of successful campaigns in the future, and suggest areas for further related research. On the basis of results of a literature review, interviews with campaign planners and the assimilation of data, the authors of the report discuss what makes media campaigns successful, how campaigns can be systematically planned, how to identify and reach target audiences, what types of message can be used, what complementary coordinated activities are available, why campaigns should be evaluated, and the limits to the potential of mass media.

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• Public information campaigns addressing youth risk-taking – PDF (435kb)