Page 12 - Social Marketing for Public Health Global Trends and Success Stories

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Preface

Of the United Nations’ eight Millennium Development Goals, four are related to
public health: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; to reduce child mortality;
to improve maternal health; and to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
(Haider & Rogers, 2005). With the commitment of 189 U.N. member nations to
achieving these goals in the years to come (Millennium project, 2006), improving
public health has never become so significant, intensive, and time-bound in a
global sense.
Identified as an “adaptation [of marketing] to public health imperatives”
(Manoff, 1985, p. 35) and one of the “key health communications tools” (Merrick
2005, p. xxv), social marketing has been playing a pivotal role in the improvement
of public health since its launch about four decades ago (e.g., Coreil, Bryant, &
Henderson, 2001; Kotler & Lee, 2008; Kotler & Zaltman, 1971; Ling, Franklin,
Lindsteadt, & Gearon, 1992; Manoff, 1985). This role is continuing and expanding
today in achieving the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals in general and in
reaching individual nations’ public health-related goals in particular.