The Reach and Impact of Social Marketing and Reproductive Health Communication Campaigns in Zambia

This paper assesses the reach of selected radio and television programmes about family planning and HIV/AIDS in Zambia, as well as the reach of communications about the socially marketed Maximum condoms, and the impact of both these communication interventions on condom use. The results suggest that exposure to these campaigns has a strong effect on condom use, that radio programmes and condom advertisements are more effective than television programmes and advertisements, and that the effect of these campaigns on condom use is considerably stronger for males than for females.

The evaluation collected data by including questions on exposure to social marketing and health communication activities in the 2001–2002 Zambia Demographic and Health Survey. To control for self-selection and endogeneity, the study used a two-stage regression model to estimate the effect of programme exposure on behavioural outcomes.

Findings showed that exposure to the reproductive health-related radio and television programmes was very high. The most popular radio programme was "Your Health Matters", which produced 58% recall among males and 36% among females. Recall was also high for the radio programmes "Our Neighborhood" and "AIDS and the Family", which were heard by over one-third of respondents. The televised version of "Your Health Matters" also had high recall (30% among men; 23% among women), as did "Xplosion". On average, women reported recalling 1.8 of the 8 programmes studied, while men recalled 2.7 programmes. The large majority of male respondents (75%) recalled exposure to messages about the socially marketed Maximum condoms.

The data suggest that exposure to these health communication campaigns had a significant effect on the likelihood that females and males ever used condoms, although the effect was fairly small among women. Males with the highest levels of exposure to reproductive-health-related radio programmes and to Maximum messages were more than twice as likely as those with low levels of exposure to have ever used condoms.

The research found that the effect of campaign exposure on condom use in last intercourse varied by gender. Exposure to these programmes had no effect on the likelihood that women used a condom in last intercourse, but the data suggest that it significantly increased the likelihood that men did. Men with the highest levels of exposure were roughly 50% more likely than those with the lowest levels of exposure to have used a condom in last intercourse. Differentiating between the types of campaigns shows that exposure to radio programmes and Maximum condom messages appears to have had significant effects, while exposure to television programmes did not.

In conclusion, the results suggest that future reproductive health communication campaigns that invest in radio programming may be more effective than those investing in television programming, and that future campaigns should seek to increase their impact among women, perhaps by focusing on the specific constrains that prevent females from using condoms.