The role of social marketing in health education / Ismail Sualman

Abstract: While social marketing is flourishing, there appears to be confusion regarding what it is,
what it can reasonably do, and how it should be applied to health education. Some confusion relates
to a perception that social marketing is limited to narrow strategies, interventions, or theories. The
purpose of this paper is to position social marketing as a systematic planning process similar to those
used in health education. The paper describes why social marketing is a planning process, how it
compares and contrasts to health education planning models, and how the social marketing planning
framework may benefit health education practice.