Impacts of a national mass media campaign on walking in Scotland

The promotion of walking as a form of exercise holds considerablepotential, both in terms of health benefits and its wide appeal to inactivegroups. This paper presents the results of the evaluation of a nationalmass media walking campaign in Scotland which involved a 40 s televisionadvertisement and a telephone helpline. The target population consisted ofpeople aged 30-55 who are not regular exercisers. The campaign impact wasassessed in terms of awareness of the campaign and pre- and post-campaignchanges in knowledge and beliefs about walking as a good form of exercise,in motivations and intentions regarding walking/exercise and inwalking/exercise behaviour. The evaluation involved two population surveysand baseline and follow-up surveys of the helpline callers. Awarenesslevels for the television advertisement peaked at 70% of the adultpopulation during the first 4-week burst of advertising, falling to 54%during the non-broadcast period. The evaluation findings show that, at apopulation level, the campaign had a notable positive impact on knowledgeabout walking as a form of exercise but no impact on walking behaviour.Among the helpline callers the campaign had a substantial impact at thelevel of intentions and behaviour: 48% of the callers followed up at 1 yearclaimed to be more physically active and there was a overall shift from the'contemplation' stage of change at baseline towards the 'action' stage atthe 10-week and 1-year follow-ups. The proportion of adults aware of thetelephone helpline rose from 5% at the start of the campaign to 16% 4months later, but only 5% of these respondents used the service. This levelof use represents 0.1% coverage at the start of the campaign rising to 1% 4months later.