TITLE:
Design of a Social Marketing Plan on Salt Reduction for the Control and Treatment of Noncommunicable Diseases in Costa Rica
AUTHORS:
Adriana Blanco-Metzler, Hilda Patricia Nuñez-Rivas, Marlene Roselló-Araya, Karol Madriz-Morales, Karla Benavides-Aguilar, Marco Castro-Araya
KEYWORDS:
Salt, Social Marketing, Behavior Change, Noncommunicable Diseases, Sodium
JOURNAL NAME:
Food and Nutrition Sciences,
Vol.14 No.11,
November
28,
2023
ABSTRACT: High blood pressure and
other non-communicable diseases associated with excessive salt/sodium
consumption represent a major challenge to the health of the world’s
population. Consumption is a human behavior that is usually influenced by
significant factors, internal and external to people. The design of a national
social marketing intervention is described. The whole process was developed by
a national interdisciplinary team over the course of a decade (2011-2022). Its
purpose is to promote changes in this behavior, through gradual reduction of
salt/sodium consumption in the target populations of Costa Rica, for the
prevention and control of associated diseases. The process includes four
phases: research, situation analysis, creation of a proposal for the social
marketing strategy, and implementation and evaluation. Last phase was not
developed by the research team. The main inputs used to design this
intervention were the data generated in three qualitative researchers carried
out by the national work team and the social marketing regional plan for salt
consumption reduction in Latin America. By analyzing these research data,
marketing mix components were determined for designing the intervention. The
marketing strategy is promotional and is based on encouraging a natural diet with less sodium using natural seasonings and
adding less discretional salt and
industrialized products high in sodium, in the preparation of food and
dishes. The primary key audience is the mother of the school-aged child, and the secondary is the adult caregivers of this
child. It is expected that in the short term, health promoters from
different government and non-state sectors will contribute to the
implementation of the national social marketing plan, to achieve, in the medium
or long term, a consumption that approaches five grams of salt per person per
day. This plan is a country initiative to position the value of a natural diet
with less sodium and to contribute to the prevention and treatment of HT and
NCD associated diseases.