Effectively Communicating about Risks from Soil Contamination
Date
2019-04-26
Author
Advisor
Shapiro-Garza, Elizabeth
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Abstract
The goal of this study was to provide recommendations for a social marketing campaign
in order to educate North Carolina community gardeners about the implications and
health effects associated with soil contamination, empowering them with the knowledge
necessary to make safe gardening decisions and elicit behavior change associated with
minimizing soil contaminant exposure. A soil contaminant is defined as “an element
or chemical present in the soil at a level that could possibly pose health risks”
(EPA, 2011). Soil contaminants can affect gardeners through consumption, inhalation,
or dermal contact (Kim et al., 2014). The most commonly found contaminants include
lead, cadmium, and arsenic (Science Communication Unit, 2013). These contaminants
have many negative health effects (Science Communication Unit, 2013).
Although the health risks posed by these contaminants can be substantial, when they
are found in soil most are enacted through long term, low-dose exposures (Jaishankar,
2014). As opposed to acute contamination, these types of risks are difficult to communicate
about in ways that will motivate behavior change (Sandman & Covello, 2001). Social
marketing, which applies the methods applied in marketing to affect individual behaviors,
but for social good, is a common approach in the field of public health as an effective
strategy for communicating these types of risks (McKenzie-Mohr, 2011). I applied a
social marketing approach with a focus on decreasing exposure to soil contaminants
in three target audiences, thereby reducing the associated health risks. Because community
gardens are becoming more and more common (Brown & Jameton, 2000), this sort of outreach
is becoming increasingly important.
The current study therefore aims to answer the following questions:
1. How can we segment our audience to most effectively communicate about soil contamination
exposure?
2. What messaging, through which channels is most likely to change the behavior of
each of these audiences?
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18436Citation
Reents, Mary (2019). Effectively Communicating about Risks from Soil Contamination. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18436.Collections
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