Social marketing: a behavior change technology for infection control

Area of Science:

• Healthcare infection control
• Behavioral science in medicine
• Health services research

Background:

• Effective infection control relies on sustained healthcare worker (HCW) behavior change.
• Traditional methods like education and policy have limitations in achieving long-term behavioral adherence.
• Opportunity and ability are critical factors for enhancing HCW practices that are often unaddressed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce social marketing concepts for improving healthcare worker behaviors.
• To explicate how social marketing can enhance opportunity and ability for practice change.
• To apply social marketing principles to the promotion of hand hygiene.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual explication of social marketing principles.
• Analysis of limitations in current behavior change strategies (education, policy).
• Application of social marketing frameworks to hand hygiene promotion.

Main Results:

• Social marketing offers a bundle of benefits at low cost and high accessibility.
• It addresses HCW lack of opportunity and ability more effectively than traditional methods.
• This approach can improve upon the behavioral status quo in healthcare settings.

Conclusions:

• Social marketing provides a viable strategy to enhance HCW behaviors for infection control.
• Addressing opportunity and ability is key to sustained practice improvement.
• Social marketing principles can be effectively applied to promote critical practices like hand hygiene.