The penetrating educational effect of a mass-media based fund-raising campaign "heart for life"

A one-Sunday fund-raising TV-show in 1987 was broadcasted by the state-owned TV-channel in Norway which is the only channel covering the whole country. The six-hour TV-show consisted of a considerable amount of information on risk of heart disease intermingled with entertainment and money-counting results. Mass media had covered the forthcoming TV-show extensively. The show is presently evaluated as a nationwide mass-media based health education campaign through a stratified random sample of 976 persons aged 15 years and above. More than 95% of the population were aware of the campaign and 75% followed the TV-show beyond the news reports. The sampled persons were asked for self-reported changes in health knowledge and behaviour. Fifty-seven per cent reported that they gained new knowledge and 25% reported behaviour changes in a positive direction. Women reported more knowledge gain than men. Low socioeconomic groups reported more gain in knowledge and more positive changes in health behaviour than high groups. A close association was found between reported new knowledge and change of health behaviour (p less than 0.001). The results of the study indicate that this campaign has reached segments of the population that previously have been difficult to reach and that this is possibly due to the extensive advance coverage of the show in the mass media and the "entertaining" character of the show with emotional appeals in addition to factual information.