Health Communication & Social Marketing: Health Communication Campaigns That Include Mass Media & Health-Related Product Distribution

Research Gaps

What are Research Gaps?

Prior to and during the literature review and data analysis, the review team and the Community Preventive Services Task Force attempt to address the key questions of what interventions work, for whom, under what conditions, and at what cost. Lack of sufficient information often leaves one or more of these questions unanswered. The Community Guide refers to these as "research gaps." Research gaps can be presented as a narrative or in the form of a basic set of questions to inform a research agenda for those in the field.

Identified Research Gaps

• The majority of the campaigns researched were short-term; therefore, additional research is needed to assess the sustainability and effectiveness of long-term campaigns.
• There is a common research gap related to the explicit efforts made to gather the most information from all targeted individuals. There is a need to increase and improve the collection on different demographic characteristics. This would help explain the differential effect of the campaigns on age gender, and race/ethnicity.
• There is also a need for researchers to design campaigns comparing the intensity of different study arms. Campaign intensity provides informative evidence on how much promotion is necessary for a targeted audience to receive a message in order to help increase the likelihood of a behavior change.

Identified Research Needs for Better Reporting

• Better reporting on intervention details, including descriptions of the methods used to develop campaigns, combined with the use of more consistent terminology within the field, would improve future research and translation activities.