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The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of the research steps taken to identify message directions for a community-wide health communication campaign aimed at supporting healthier eating behaviors among Latino farmworker families in the Immokalee community in Florida. Latino mothers were targeted to understand their beliefs about children’s healthy eating needs and identify communication campaign opportunities that would reinforce choices made in the home, surrounding meal planning, food selection and preparation and portion sizes.

A sequential mixed-methods approach using focus group, group interview and qualitative message concept testing was used in three distinct stages of research exploration. An independent sample was recruited at each stage through convenience sampling and snowball sampling methods. The stages of change theory provided a framework for research inquiry in the context of healthy eating-at-home practices.

In general, mothers were aware and participatory in the effort to serve healthy meals for their children at home. The time and money associated with buying nutritious foods and cooking healthy meals daily was stressful, but they were receptive to communication efforts to help them maintain their commitment to give their children healthy foods. These findings provided directional opportunities for the discovery and implementation of health communication strategies. Test results found that the target was most receptive to message strategies that acknowledged the responsibility of both parents to model healthy eating practices to children.

Recruiting resulted in small sample sizes at each stage of the investigation. The reliability of quantitative measurement was a limitation to the research conclusions.

Partnership with the audience from discovery to conceptualization resulted in messages that uniquely resonated with the audience for which they were aimed. Understanding about the target stage of readiness improves message effectiveness to the target group.

Health communication campaigns planned and developed with the target audience at its center will generate message strategies that effectively address issues of greatest relevance to those communication agents that seek to change.

The study provides a unique exploration of the steps that health communication agents should pursue to establish a thorough profile of their target audience and the issues that resonate when considering healthy eating behavior at home. The application of the stages of the change model encouraged the discovery of issues surrounding the challenge and highlighted potential obstacles that would mitigate the behavior change efforts.

Eating away from home frequency is increasing and is linked with numerous adverse health outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to inform the development of health promotion materials for improving eating away from home behaviors by elucidating related parent and child cognitions.

Parents (n=37) and children (n=35; ages 6–11 years) participated in focus group discussions, based on social cognitive theory. Data were content analyzed to detect themes.

Many parents were concerned about what children ate away from home, however, others were less concerned because these occasions were infrequent. Lack of time and busy schedules were the most common barriers to eating fewer meals away from home. The greatest barrier to ensuring children ate healthfully away from home was parents were not present to monitor children’s intake. To overcome this, parents supervised what kids packed for lunch, provided caregivers instruction on foods to provide, and taught kids to make healthy choices. Kids understood that frequently eating away from home resulted in less healthful behaviors. Barriers for kids to eat healthy when away from home were tempting foods and eating in places with easy access to less healthy food. Kids reported they could take responsibility by requesting healthy foods and asking parents to help them eat healthfully away from home by providing healthy options and guidance.

This study is one of the first to qualitatively analyze parent and child eating away from home cognitions. It provides insights for tailoring nutrition education interventions to be more responsive to these audiences’ needs.

Recruiting college students for research studies can be challenging. The purpose of this paper is to describe the lessons learned in the various recruitment strategies used for enrolling college students in a theory-based, tailored, and web-delivered health intervention at 13 US universities.

The community-based participatory research (CBPR) model was used to develop a staged-tailored, web-based, randomized control trial, focussing on eating behavior, physical activity, and stress management. Participant feedback during baseline assessments was used to evaluate recruitment strategies.

Findings from this feedback suggest that traditional recruitment strategies, such as newspaper ads and flyers, may not be the best approach for recruiting college students; instead, web-based efforts proved to be a better recruitment strategy.

This project included results from 13 US universities and thus may not be generalizable: more research is needed to determine successful recruitment methods for 18-24 years old college students.

This paper lessens the gap regarding successful recruitment strategies for 18-24 years old college students.

Little is known about health‐related advertising on university environments. Given the power of advertising and its potential effect on health behaviors, the purpose of this paper is to assess the health‐related advertisement environment and policies on university campuses.

In total, ten geographically and ethnically diverse US university campuses that were trained in using the health‐related advertisement survey tool participated in the study. Inter‐rater reliability with data collectors at each university was established before data commencement began in Spring 2011. The survey tool assessed the types, locations, and prevalence of health‐related advertisements and messages (e.g. nutrition, alcohol, tobacco) on campus, and included both advertisements and messages related to any aspect of health by any sponsor. Current campus health‐related policies from each institution were collected as well.

The largest proportion of advertisements on all campuses were for diet/nutrition, exercise/fitness, and alcohol. The majority of advertisements promoted positive health behaviors recommended by health professionals. Unbranded advertisements were more likely to promote positive health behaviors than branded advertisements. Diet/nutrition, tobacco, and drug advertisements were more likely to be positive, whereas alcohol‐related advertisements tended to be negative.

The paper's findings indicate significant gaps in campus health‐related policies with regard to healthy eating and physical activity and lack of policies covering health‐related advertisement content. Benchmark data like those reported here can help campus stakeholders set priorities and work with campus decision makers to advocate for the development and implementation of healthy campus policies that support healthy environments.