Practice-based social marketing to improve well-being for people with intellectual disabilities

ABSTRACT

Psychosocial theories that are often used to inform health promotion interventions for groups with reduced agency are not successful in bringing desirable changes. Critical social marketing provides avenues to disrupt mainstream individualistic approaches, which have been found unsuitable for vulnerable populations due to personal and systemic obstacles that prevent them to change behaviours and adopt healthier lifestyles. Adopting a critical social marketing lens, this conceptual paper explores how social practice theory can help to reimagine social marketing as a tool to reclaim agency, to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, particularly people with disabilities. To demonstrate this practice-based social marketing approach, we used the example of physical activity for people with intellectual disabilities (PwID). Therefore, the paper has theoretical implications, contributing to the critical social marketing literature, and practical implications. It provides examples of how practice-based social marketing can be applied to increase physical activity and agency for PwID who reside in group homes.

KEYWORDS:

• Social marketing
• practice theory
• intellectual disabilities
• group homes
• physical activity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Intellectual disability is a condition characterised by significant limitations in both intellectual functioning (learning, problem solving, judgement) and adaptive behaviour (activities of daily life) that originates before the age of 22.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Angela Makris

Angela Makris is a PhD Candidate at the University of South Florida, College of Public Health. Her research interests involve applying practice theory to the social marketing framework to achieve health equity for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Her specific interest is the home as a health promotion setting focusing on the effect of the dynamics of everyday life related to disability, health disparities, health promotion, and physical activity.

Ariadne Kapetanaki

Ariadne Kapetanaki is a Lecturer in Marketing at the University of York Management School. Her research focuses on social marketing, critical marketing and consumer culture. She is particularly interested in the areas of food consumption, food policies, and vulnerable consumers. She has worked on a number of funded research projects as part of interdisciplinary teams and her work has been published in marketing, sociology, environmental and public health/medicine journals.