Promoting community health resources: preferred communication strategies.

Community health promotion efforts involve communicating resource information to priority populations. Which communication strategies are most effective is largely unknown for specific populations. A random dialed representative phone survey was conducted assessing current health resource community awareness, health resource utilization, and communication strategy preferences. The survey revealed that community members preferred to receive information on health resources from the Internet (28.3%), newspaper (26.4%), or mail (22.3%). Different priority populations had varying health communication strategy preferences (e.g., young adults prefer Internet, older adults prefer newspaper, and obese adults prefer mail). Ideally, if health resources are intended for adult audiences, a campaign that would include communication through newspaper (targeting older adults), mailing (targeting obese adults), and Web sites (targeting younger adults) would be the most effective approach. This research suggests that an assessment of communication strategy preferences of the priority population might be a crucial first step when developing health promotion programs.