Volume 34, Issue 6, Supplement, Pages S173-S174 (June 2008)

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SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

VERB™: Demonstrating a Viable National Option for Promoting Physical Activity Among Our Children

Article Outline

• The VERB Campaign Adds an Important New Perspective About Our Options

• Acknowledgment

• Supplementary data

• References

• Copyright

The obesity epidemic in the U.S. and other Western countries—indeed, in much of the world—illustrates the need to find ways to increase physical activity (and promote healthy eating) at a true population level, especially among children. The question is: How? There is good evidence for the effectiveness of various individual and small group interventions1 but such interventions are difficult to take to scale and therefore are likely to have limited population impact.

There is a small but growing literature documenting the potential to modify the physical environment as a mean of promoting population physical activity.2 Despite their promise, these approaches also pose clear challenges in terms of their ability to be implemented nationally. Like politics, beneficial modifications to the environment to promote physical activity are inherently local, and implementation therefore occurs one community at a time.

Schools clearly provide a promising setting for interventions to promote physical among children, and Kelder et al.3 have shown considerable success in disseminating CATCH, an evidence-based physical activity and nutrition program in Texas. This worthy accomplishment is proof of the principle that school-based approaches can be taken to scale, and thereby achieve population impact, although not without the considerable attention and effort needed to help individual schools successfully adopt and implement the program.

Media campaigns represent another approach that has shown promise. Even though the CDC's Guide to Community Preventive Services4 found insufficient evidence to recommend stand-alone physical activity mass-media campaigns, it does recommend the use of community-wide campaigns, which combine media activities with other localized interventions. We have independently commented elsewhere that the evidence of population effectiveness for these community-wide approaches looks more promising than not.5, 6 However, this evidence of effectiveness is confined largely to general-population (i.e., adult) campaigns. Until now, there have been only modest efforts to use the mass media to promote physical activity among children.

The VERB™ Campaign Adds an Important New Perspective About Our Options

By aggressively reaching out to young people with compelling messages developed from deep insights into their motivations and aspirations, the VERB team demonstrated a remarkable ability to hit the mark and achieve population-based impact. That the target audience was national in scope made the accomplishment all that much more impressive.

Although not conceived as such, we think that VERB should now be thought of as a national demonstration project. While the funding situation did not permit the continuation of the program, the evaluation of VERB reported in this supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and elsewhere provides clear evidence that a national media campaign with strong social marketing elements in many communities can have a demonstrable and important impact on physical activity at the population level, nationwide.

Many methods—media and marketing, traditional and innovative—were used in the VERB demonstration project. While it is not possible to disentangle the relative contribution of each method to the overall success of the program, the dividends of CDC's unwavering commitment to evaluation become obvious in this supplement. Such careful attention to evaluation and documentation is often overlooked, yet it is precisely what is needed to help advance public health practice.7 Much was learned, and the papers in this supplement provide careful documentation of those lessons.8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

Even though media campaigns should never be considered a silver bullet in efforts to solve public health problems—their causes are nearly always too complex to be solved through any one means19—we feel that the VERB experience should be used by public health professionals to promote aggressive investments in this type of programming as part of a balanced portfolio to ensure that our children get the physical activity they need for optimal health.

The findings and conclusions in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the CDC.

No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this paper.

Supplementary data

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VERB™ Background Reports

References

1. 1Kahn EB, Ramsey LT, Brownson RC, et al. The effectiveness of interventions to increase physical activity: a systematic review. Am J Prev Med. 2002;22(S1):73–107. Full Text | Full-Text PDF (34 KB) | CrossRef

2. 2National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). Physical activity and environment: guidance. London: NICE www.nice.org.uk/guidance/index.jsp?action=download&o=389832008;.

3. 3Hoelscher DM, Feldman HA, Johnson CC, et al. School-based health education programs can be maintained over time: Results from the CATCH institutionalization study. Prev Med. 2004;38:594–606. MEDLINE | CrossRef

4. 4Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Recommendations to increase physical activity in communities. Am J Prev Med. 2002;22(4S):67–72. Full Text | Full-Text PDF (65 KB) | CrossRef

5. 5Cavill N, Bauman A. Changing the way people think about health-enhancing physical activity: do mass media campaigns have a role?. J Sports Sci. 2004;22:771–790. MEDLINE | CrossRef

6. 6Maibach EW. The influence of the media environment on physical activity: looking for the big picture. Am J Health Promot. 2007;21:S353–S362.

7. 7Bauman A, Smith BJ, Maibach EW, Reger-Nash B. Evaluation of mass media campaigns for physical activity. Eval Program Plann. 2006;29:312–322. CrossRef

8. 8Wong FL, Greenwell M, Gates S, Berkowitz JM. It's what you do! Reflections on the VERB™ campaign. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):175–182.

9. 9Asbury LD, Wong FL, Price SM, Nolin MJ. The VERB™ campaign: applying a branding strategy in public health. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S183–S187. Abstract | Full Text | Full-Text PDF (82 KB) | CrossRef

10. 10Heitzler CD, Asbury LD, Kusner SL. Bringing “play” to life: the use of experiential marketing in the VERB™ campaign. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S188–S193. Abstract | Full Text | Full-Text PDF (432 KB) | CrossRef

11. 11Huhman M, Berkowitz JM, Wong FL, et al. The VERB™ campaign's strategy for reaching African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian children and parents. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S194–S209. Abstract | Full Text | Full-Text PDF (172 KB) | CrossRef

12. 12Bretthauer-Mueller R, Berkowitz JM, Thomas M, et al. Catalyzing community action within a national campaign: VERB™ community and national partnerships. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S210–S221. Abstract | Full Text | Full-Text PDF (1730 KB) | CrossRef

13. 13Berkowitz JM, Huhman M, Heitzler CD, Potter LD, Nolin MJ, Banspach SW. Overview of formative, process, and outcome evaluation methods used in the VERB™ campaign. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S222–S229. Abstract | Full Text | Full-Text PDF (94 KB) | CrossRef

14. 14Potter LD , Judkins DR, Piesse A, Nolin MJ, Huhman M. Methodology of the outcome evaluation of the VERB™ campaign. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S230–S240. Abstract | Full Text | Full-Text PDF (153 KB) | CrossRef

15. 15Huhman M, Bauman A, Bowles HR. Initial outcomes of the VERB™ campaign: tweens' awareness and understanding of campaign messages. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S241–S248. Abstract | Full Text | Full-Text PDF (95 KB) | CrossRef

16. 16Bauman A, Bowles HR, Huhman M, et al. Testing a hierarchy-of-effects model: pathways from awareness to outcomes in the VERB™ campaign 2002–2003. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S249–S256. Abstract | Full Text | Full-Text PDF (199 KB) | CrossRef

17. 17Berkowitz JM, Huhman M, Nolin MJ. Did augmenting the VERB™ campaign advertising in select communities have an effect on awareness, attitudes, and physical activity?. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S257–S266. Abstract | Full Text | Full-Text PDF (109 KB) | CrossRef

18. 18Price SM, Huhman M, Potter LD. Influencing the parents of children aged 9–13 years: findings from the VERB™ campaign. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S267–S274. Abstract | Full Text | Full-Text PDF (110 KB) | CrossRef

19. 19Abroms L, Maibach EW. The effectiveness of mass communication to change public behavior. Annu Rev Public Health. 2008;29:16.1–16.6.

a Cavill Associates, Stockport, United Kingdom

b Center of Excellence in Climate Change Communication Research, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia

Address correspondence and reprint requests: Nick Cavill, MPH, Cavill Associates, 185A Moss Lane, Bramhall, Stockport, Cheshire SK7 1BA, United Kingdom.

PII: S0749-3797(08)00261-4

doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2008.03.013

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