An instrument to assess health‐related advertising on college campuses

Abstract

Purpose

Advertising can affect health‐related behaviors of young adults. However, little is known about this environmental influence on college campuses. The purpose of this paper is to create an inventory for assessing health‐related advertisements and use it to assess advertising on/near the campus of a major Northeastern university.

Design/methodology/approach

The inventory was developed from existing instruments, input from experts, and data collected from student focus groups. The instrument was pilot tested, refined, and used by three trained data collectors (inter‐rater reliability =87.5 percent) to assess the advertising in academic buildings (n=10), residence halls (n=3), libraries (n=2), recreation centers (n=3), student centers (n=2), dining halls (n=3), bookstores (n=2), bus stops (n=4), campus student listserves, and retail stores adjacent to campus.

Findings

Of the 130 advertisements, most common types were related to diet/nutrition (41.5 percent) and exercise/fitness (14.6 percent). An evaluation of advertising message polarity revealed 61.5 percent promoted positive health behaviors. Negative messages were mostly related to branded diet/nutrition ads (26 percent). Health‐related advertising on/near this university's campus mostly promoted good health practices in accordance to the university policies. However, improvements in developing university policies with regard to branded diet/nutrition ads on campus are warranted.

Research limitations/implications

The study described in this paper was conducted at one time point at a single university. Future studies should examine seasonal variations and the usefulness of this instrument on other college campuses.

Originality/value

This valid data collection tool will be of benefit to other college campuses and policy makers who wish to identify how to improve campus‐related advertising policies to ensure they promote positive health behaviors.

Citation

Szymona, K., Quick, V. and Byrd‐Bredbenner, C. (2011), "An instrument to assess health‐related advertising on college campuses", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 96-103. https://doi.org/10.1108/00346651111117364