Milken Institute School of Public Health Poster Presentations (Marvin Center & Video)
Poster Number
88
Document Type
Poster
Status
Graduate Student - Doctoral
Abstract Category
Global Health
Keywords
collective norms, social norms, mass media, contraceptive use, tolerance for violence against women
Publication Date
Spring 2018
Abstract
Background: Contraceptive use and attitudes about violence against women, though enacted at the individual level, are also driven by factors at the interpersonal and social levels. The role of mass media in promoting social norms surrounding these attitudes and behaviors has not received much scholarly attention but can be helpful to illuminate areas for intervention.
Hypothesis: We proposed and tested the hypothesis that collective norms (defined as a groups aggregate behavior or attitudes) would be associated with individual level attitudes (tolerance towards violence against women) and behaviors (contraception use). This relationship was further hypothesized to vary by media use, such that the relationship between collective norms and individual attitudes and behaviors would be strong when media use was low, and vice versa.
Method/Design: Data come from the 2016 Ethiopian and Tanzanian Demographic and Health Surveys (N = 6,907 and N = 4,084 in the two countries, respectively). Multi-level regressions were run within nested models to predict individual level contraception use and tolerance for violence from collective norms for contraception use and tolerance for violence, media use, and their interaction, controlling for age, wealth, education and urban versus rural. Marginal probabilities were estimated to examine the interaction effects more closely and hierarchical multi level models were run to examine the between community variation.
Results: Hypotheses, tested in the context of modern contraceptive use and tolerance for violence against women, were supported in three out of the four interactions, (OR = .99, p = < .001) (OR = .99, p = < .001) (β = -.05, p = < .01), but not for tolerance towards violence against women in the Tanzanian data set (β = .00, p > .05).
Conclusion: These results support the idea that mass media can serve as external agents of change to attenuate the impact of unhealthy collective norms on individual attitudes and behaviors. Implications for public health campaigns are discussed.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Open Access
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Included in
Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons, Health Communication Commons, International Public Health Commons
How collective norms and media use affect attitudes about violence against women and contraception use in sub-Saharan Africa
Background: Contraceptive use and attitudes about violence against women, though enacted at the individual level, are also driven by factors at the interpersonal and social levels. The role of mass media in promoting social norms surrounding these attitudes and behaviors has not received much scholarly attention but can be helpful to illuminate areas for intervention.
Hypothesis: We proposed and tested the hypothesis that collective norms (defined as a groups aggregate behavior or attitudes) would be associated with individual level attitudes (tolerance towards violence against women) and behaviors (contraception use). This relationship was further hypothesized to vary by media use, such that the relationship between collective norms and individual attitudes and behaviors would be strong when media use was low, and vice versa.
Method/Design: Data come from the 2016 Ethiopian and Tanzanian Demographic and Health Surveys (N = 6,907 and N = 4,084 in the two countries, respectively). Multi-level regressions were run within nested models to predict individual level contraception use and tolerance for violence from collective norms for contraception use and tolerance for violence, media use, and their interaction, controlling for age, wealth, education and urban versus rural. Marginal probabilities were estimated to examine the interaction effects more closely and hierarchical multi level models were run to examine the between community variation.
Results: Hypotheses, tested in the context of modern contraceptive use and tolerance for violence against women, were supported in three out of the four interactions, (OR = .99, p = < .001) (OR = .99, p = < .001) (β = -.05, p = < .01), but not for tolerance towards violence against women in the Tanzanian data set (β = .00, p > .05).
Conclusion: These results support the idea that mass media can serve as external agents of change to attenuate the impact of unhealthy collective norms on individual attitudes and behaviors. Implications for public health campaigns are discussed.
Comments
Presented at GW Annual Research Days 2018.