Promoting improvements in public health: Using a Social Norms Approach to reduce use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs

Abstract

There is increasing interest in implementing the Social Norms Approach outside the university setting but a relative paucity of description of such projects. The approach offers an alternative to traditional fear-based health education. The current article describes three social norms projects, all driven by public health agendas, conducted in the United Kingdom (UK). Projects reflect diversity of: settings; target substances; project team leadership and team makeup. All projects were commissioned to address public health needs. The current article uses these three projects to illustrate the practical implementation of the stages set out by McAlaney et al. (2010) (i.e. preparation, data collection, data analysis, intervention, follow-up and evaluation). A discussion of challenges and key learning outcomes is provided. These projects illustrate that social norms interventions driven by public health agendas and led from outside of academic institutions, can use the implementation advice available to produce coherent and potentially successful campaigns to moderate use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. There continues to be a need for outcome data to evaluate the short- and long-term impact of using this approach. The potential for the approach to provide opportunity for public engagement in shaping and delivering public health campaigns merits further research.