Evaluating values-based message frames for type 2 diabetes prevention among Facebook audiences: Divergent values or common ground?

Deepti Chittamuru; Ryane Daniels; Urmimala Sarkar; Dean Schillinger

doi:10.1016/j.pec.2020.08.042

Evaluating values-based message frames for type 2 diabetes prevention among Facebook audiences: Divergent values or common ground?

Patient Educ Couns. 2020 Sep 2:S0738-3991(20)30473-0. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2020.08.042. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Deepti Chittamuru¹, Ryane Daniels², Urmimala Sarkar³, Dean Schillinger⁴

Affiliations

¹ Public Health Department, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Art, University of California Merced, 5200 N. Lake Rd, Merced, CA 95343 USA. Electronic address: dchittamuru@ucmerced.edu.
² Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Communications Research Program, Center for Vulnerable Populations, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, University of California San Francisco, 1001 Potrero Ave, SFGH 10, 1320A, San Francisco, CA 94110 USA. Electronic address: Ryane.Daniels@ucsf.edu.
³ Division of General Internal Medicine and Center for Vulnerable Populations, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, University of California San Francisco, 1001 Potrero Ave, 1319, San Francisco, CA, 94110 USA. Electronic address: Urmimala.Sarkar@ucsf.edu.
⁴ Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Communications Research Program, Center for Vulnerable Populations, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, University of California San Francisco, 1001 Potrero Ave, SFGH 10, 1320A, San Francisco, CA 94110 USA. Electronic address: Dean.Schillinger@ucsf.edu.

Abstract

Objective: To effectively confront the type 2 diabetes (T2D) epidemic, policymakers and the public need to problematize T2D less as a medical and more as a social problem. An award-winning T2D prevention campaign was harnessed to determine the most successful ways of framing ads on Facebook.

Hypothesis: We will observe variation in the effectiveness of ad message-frames within audience-segments.

Methods: Six parallel quasi-experiments (participants N = 203,156) were conducted with 6 disparate audience-segments defined through the Facebook ads-manager tool. Across all audiences, we exposed Facebook users to values-based ad-frames (10-15-word appeals), assigning 7 of 11 possible frames to participants within each audience in a quasi-experimental fashion (using Facebook users' birth-month). Engagement was measured by rates of ad video-views, unique-link-clicks and donations to the campaign.

Results: Contrary to our hypothesis, we observed remarkable consistency across target audiences. Ad-frames that ranked highly with most audience-segments included Entertainment and Emotional Appeal; Defiance Against Authority Appeal; Second-Hand Smoke/Environmental Appeal; and to a lesser extent, Common-Enemy/War-Metaphor Appeal. Conclusion and Practice-Implications: Across disparate segments of society, there appears to be a set of common values that public health communication initiatives can tap into to catalyze a more inclusive movement to confront the T2D epidemic through policy, systems and environmental approaches.

Keywords: Health attitudes; Health campaigns; Health communication; Health knowledge; Health literacy; Message framing; Prevention research; Public health; Social marketing; Type 2 diabetes mellitus; Values-Based messaging.

Abstract

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