A Social Marketing Intervention to Prevent Drowning Among Inner-City Youth.

BACKGROUND: Water-related injuries and fatalities pose serious public health issues, especially to African American youth, a demographic group that drowns at disproportionately high rates. AIM: The purpose of this study was to determine if a social marketing intervention targeting the parents and guardians of inner-city youth (U.S. Midwest) could positively influence their perceptions concerning water safety. METHOD: Researchers employed a quasi-experimental design using matched pairs to evaluate the intervention. Participants consisted of parents who enrolled their children in a six-session survival-swimming course. Guided by the Health Belief Model, the researchers disseminated six prevention messages using six different channels (brochure, e-mail, SMS text message, postcard, Facebook, and window cling). RESULTS: The findings from a two-way analysis of covariance revealed that treatment group participants' knowledge and perceptions of water-related threat all changed favorably. Additionally, all participants planned to reenroll their children in swim lessons. DISCUSSION: A social marketing campaign using the Health Belief Model improved inner-city parents' knowledge regarding water safety and enhanced their self-efficacy. CONCLUSION: This study provides practitioners with feasible strategies (prevention messages) to supplement swim lessons, with the ultimate goal of preventing drowning among at-risk youth.

Assessing assets in racially diverse, inner-city youths: psychometric properties of the search institute asset questionnaire.

Asset assessment of adolescents is becoming increasingly common in communities. The purpose of this study was to assess the validity and reliability of the "Profiles of Student Life," the most commonly used asset assessment questionnaire. In this study, 435 Midwestern, inner-city, primarily African-American (77%) students completed the instrument, with 288 completing it twice for stability reliability. Principal components analysis did not support construct validity of the categories as identified by the Search Institute. Both internal consistency and stability reliabilities were poor to mediocre for the various categories. The use of the Profiles of Student Life instrument may not be useful in community assessment with inner city, racially diverse populations.