Health promotion and mass media use: translating research into practice

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which health professionals in the state of California are using the mass media for health promotion. Results from 121 health professionals indicated that: (i) they use media widely as a tool for health promotion; (ii) they use multiple communication strategies in working with television, radio stations, and newspapers; (iii) they most often cited increasing awareness and disseminating information as outcome objectives; (iv) they commonly use foreign language media channels; (v) their attitudes toward media are positive; (vi) they perceived barriers to effective media use primarily as time and money; (vii) they feel a need for additional training on how to use mass media; and (viii) they seldom use formative and summative evaluation. Our results raise concerns as to whether media are being used as effectively as possible for improving health. We recommend that future research focus on understanding the process of translating research into practice.