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Social Marketing as a Strategy to Address Public Health Issues 59

other sectors and partners, is considered central to public health. (Public
Health Agency of Canada, 2007)

SOCI A L M A RKE TI NG A S A STR ATEGY TO A DDRES S P U B L IC
H E A LTH IS SU ES

As an early adopter of social marketing, Canada has integrated this unique form
of marketing into many of its public health strategies for more than 30 years.
Initially, social marketing was primarily used by national government depart-
ments, such as Health Canada (Mintz, 2004), and nongovernmental agencies
like ParticipACTION, a national physical activity promotion agency (Edwards,
2004). Social marketing is now used in a more extensive and sustained way at all
levels by an ever-growing constituency of trained professionals to address a
broader range of public health issues.
Some Canadian public health issues and health determinants addressed
through social marketing approaches in recent years include:

• Aboriginal diabetes (Health Canada, 2005a).
• Adult literacy (Turnley-Johnston, Lavack, & Clark, 2007).
• Air pollution (McDowell, 2008; McKenzie-Mohr, 2008).
• Alcohol abstinence among pregnant women (Deshpande et al., 2005).
• Drinking and driving (Mintz, 2004).
• Drug prevention (Mintz, 2004).
• Emergency preparedness (Mintz & Woolridge, 2008).
• Hand hygiene (Mah, Tam, & Deshpande, 2008).
• Healthy/environmentally friendly and affordable housing (Lagarde, 2007a,
2007b).
• Healthy living (Renaud, Caron-Bouchard, Beaulieu, & Martel, 2007).
• Injury prevention (Mintz, 2004).
• Nutrition (Duquette, 2008; Sali & Lavack, 2007).
• Occupational health and safety (Lavack et al., in press).
• Organ donation (Lagarde, 2005).
• Pesticides (Lévesque, 2008).
• Physical activity and healthy living (Edwards, 2004; Laberge, Bush,
Chagnon, & Laforest, 2007).
• Smoking prevention and cessation (Lavack & Toth, 2004; Lagarde,
Tremblay, & Des Marchais, 2007).
• Sudden infant death syndrome (Cotroneo, 2004).
• Youth development (Deshpande & Basil, 2006).