Use of System Dynamics Modeling to Explicate the Theory-of-Change of a Social Marketing Innovation

• Main Author: Biroscak, Brian J.
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholar Commons 2014
• Subjects: community coalitions; complexity; developmental evaluation; policy advocacy; public health; utilization-focused evaluation; Marketing; Other Earth Sciences; Public Health
• Online Access: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5184; https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6380&context=etd

Community coalitions are an important part of the public health milieu and thus subject to many of the same external pressures as public health organizations--including changes in required strategic orientation. Many funding agencies have shifted their funding agenda from program development to policy change. Thus, the Florida Prevention Research Center created the Community-Based Prevention Marketing for Policy Development framework to teach community coalitions how to apply social marketing to policy change. The dissertation research reported here was designed to explicate the framework's theory-of-change. The research question was: "What are the linkages and connections between CBPM inputs, activities, immediate outcomes, intermediate outcomes, and ultimate impacts?" The author implemented a case study design, with the case being a normative community coalition. The study adhered to a well-developed series of steps for system dynamics modeling. Results from model simulations show how gains in performance depend on a community coalition's initial culture and initial efficiency, and that only the most efficient coalitions may see benefits in coalition performance from implementing Community-Based Prevention Marketing for Policy Development. Theoretical implications for social marketers--e.g., real-world example of how to work `upstream'--and system dynamics modelers--e.g., application of generic structures--are discussed. Practical implications for the framework's developers--namely, the importance of managing the early expectations of framework adopters--are discussed as well.