DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
News Release issued by The Government News Network on 10 July 2008
A new framework
for action on social marketing and public health was published
today by the Department of Health. Ambitions for Health sets out
how we will use evidence of what motivates people to help them
lead healthier lives through targeted action. This builds on the
success of programmes like Health Trainers, which provides
one-to-one support to help individuals tackle health issues.
People are ambitious for their own health and for the health of
their family. This framework shares that ambition, ensuring that
we use evidence and our understanding about people to design and
deliver effective interventions.
The new framework for social marketing is based on four key areas:
* Health Capacity: Increasing the skills and knowledge of public
health professionals through a series of conferences, seminars,
and research materials.
* Health Insight: What motivates people to change their
behaviour. A new 'life stage segmentation model' will be
live by Summer 2009, which provides a '360-degree
picture' of the population and individual behaviour across
issues including obesity, drug and alcohol misuse, and smoking. A
new 'one stop research shop' will also bring together a
vast array of useful data in one place.
* Health Innovations: Putting social marketing into action
locally, nationally, and regionally. Learning from the successes
of programmes like Health Trainers and Life Checks will inform
future innovative ways to improve people's health.
* Health Partnerships: We have established a £1 million per annum
partnerships capacity building fund to provide local and regional
support for building partnerships.
Research suggests that 86% of people think that the Government
should intervene to prevent illness by providing information and
advice, but 89% of people think individuals are responsible for
their own health1. This proves the need to find new ways of
empowering people to make the choices themselves.
Public Health Minister, Dawn Primarolo said:
"Social marketing puts people at the heart of policy-making
and is vital to improving public health. This framework
illustrates our long-term commitment to a new way of working, and
will help the commercial, public and third sectors to deliver
health-related behavioural interventions."
Dr Jeff French, Director of the National Social Marketing Centre said:
"We are delighted to support Ambitions for Health and the
Department of Health's vision for social marketing in
England. In particular we commend the strategy in responding to
the recommendations outlined in the It's our Health review
prepared by the National Social Marketing Centre on behalf of the
National Consumer Council."
Ends
Notes to editors
1. King's Fund, 2004
2. Ambitions for Health: A strategic framework for maximising the
potential of social marketing and health-related behaviour can be
downloaded from: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publichealth/Choosinghealth/DH_066342
3. Ambitions for Health sets out our formal response to the
recommendations contained in It's Our Health. This was an
independent report commissioned jointly by the National Consumer
Council (NCC) and the Department of Health (DH) as one of the
commitments set out in the public health White Paper Choosing
Health. It builds on the final report from regional roadshow
programmes for Health Challenge England published in December 2007.
4. More information can be found online via http://www.dh.gov.uk including:
* Choosing Health: making healthy choices easier (2004)
* Health Challenge England - next steps for choosing health (2006)
* Our health, our care, our say: making it happen (2006)
* It's Our Health (2006)
* Health Challenge England: Next Steps to Choosing Health (2006)
* Partnerships for Better Health. Small Change Big Difference:
Healthier Choices for Life (2007)
* Health Challenge England regional roadshows: Final Report (2007)