Community-Based Social Marketing: A Supplemental Approach to Improve Environmental Attitudes and Environmental Health in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This article argues that a community-based social marketing (CBSM) framework can support an environmental health communication and advocacy campaign in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. First, the personal and group environmental attitudes and behavior in the region are identified. Next, a summary is provided of the underlying sources, types, and magnitude of the region’s environmental challenges from oil production agriculture, and illegal logging. Using grounded theory, a CBSM strategy is proposed for enhancing environmental attitudes and behavior for promoting environmental health in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. The analysis identified specific behavior change necessary to improve environmental conditions, themes and resources, including groups and institutions that could be considered as assets, as well as potential barriers to implementing CBSM in the Niger Delta. It also identified the need to combine the CBSM with the social ecological model to make it effective for framing appropriately targeted pro-environmental communication addressing complex socio-political problems.

KEYWORDS:

• Nigeria
• Niger Delta
• environmental communication
• community-based social marketing
• social ecological model

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Upstream elements that often contribute to and even originate societal problems often include corporations, policies, and regulations. In the mid-1990s critics of social marketing pointed out that these campaigns (health, safety, environmental) emphasized behavior change at the individual level to solve problems that were caused “upstream,” or by some societal/political force (Gordon, R., 2013). Instead, social marketing campaigns (and community-based social marketing campaigns) need to include upstream causes or influence such as corporations, lawmakers, and policies (Andreasen, 2006; Saunders et al., 2015). Downstream elements of a problem often include individual behavior that results from psychological and social factors.