Using an Opinion Poll to Build an Obesity-Prevention Social Marketing Campaign for Low-Income Asian and Hispanic Immigrants: Report of Findings

ObjectiveTo gain opinions from low-income, limited-English-speaking Hispanic and Asian immigrants for formative research in a social marketing campaign.DesignNineteen questions on obesity prevention-related topics were embedded into a larger random digit-dial survey investigating the effects of language and cultural barriers on health care access. Participants were selected by ethnic encoding from consumer databases.SettingCalifornia’s northern, southern, and Central Valley regions.ParticipantsNine hundred and five adult Hispanic, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hmong, and Korean Californians from households < 130% of the Federal Poverty Level interviewed in 2005.Variables MeasuredMedia usage, food stamp participation, health insurance, health problems, access and availability of fruits and vegetables (FVs) and physical activity, beliefs about overweight, and related regulation and policy change.AnalysisDescriptive statistics and percentages for all questions.ResultsLatinos reported receiving most information from television; Hmong from radio. Hispanics, Koreans, and Vietnamese thought diabetes was the greatest health issue in California. Among Hmong, 83% thought FVs were too expensive, and 49% of Vietnamese thought good quality, affordable fresh FVs were too hard to find.Conclusions and ImplicationsIdentifying characteristics and opinions that distinguish these ethnic immigrant populations better enables the Network for a Healthy California to develop culturally relevant social marketing campaigns and materials.