Background. Many question whether mass media, in the absence of other progr
amming, can produce significant and sustained behavior change.
Methods. The 1% Or Less campaign in Wheeling, West Virginia (population 35,
000), used paid advertising and public relations to encourage members of on
e community to switch from whole or 2% milk (high-fat milk) to 1% or fat-fr
ee milk (low-fat milk). The study used a quasi-experimental research design
with one intervention city and one comparison city. The effectiveness of t
he campaign was evaluated by collecting milk sales data from supermarkets a
nd conducting pre- and postintervention telephone surveys in intervention a
nd comparison cities.
Results. In the intervention city, low-fat milk sales increased from 29% of
overall milk sales before the campaign to 46% of sales in the month follow
ing the campaign. The increase was maintained at the 6-month follow up. Acc
ording to the telephone surveys, 34.1% of high-fat-milk drinkers reported s
witching to low-fat milk in the intervention community compared with 3.6% i
n the comparison community (z = 13.1, P < 0.0001).
Conclusions. A media-only approach was sufficient to encourage a significan
t proportion of the people in one community to alter the dietary habit targ
eted by the intervention. (C) 1999 American Health Foundation and Academic
Press.