Angela Makris, a USF College of Public Health (COPH) doctoral candidate, recently attended the European Social Marketing Conference and served on a panel focusing on the role social marketing can play in health and health care disparities for people with disabilities. 

The conference was held in Greece in June.

The panel addressed a series of topics, including:

• How social marketing can promote social inclusion and help create programs for underrepresented populations, in particular those who are disabled.
• How to increase social marketing research and interventions in the disability sector
• How to adapt social marketing methodologies and strategies so public health and social services professionals can improve the quality of life of disabled people
• How to train professionals who want to adopt and integrate social marketing in their programs and activities
• How to create a pathway for more inclusive recruitment of people with disabilities in research and community-based behavior change programs

“​Social marketing, by its very nature, is inclusive,” said Makris, who’s concentrating in community and family health. “No social marketing initiative occurs without the involvement of the community the initiative is being aimed at. The mantra for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) is ‘nothing about us without us.’ It’s a mantra that developed due to the manipulative nature of the health care field in the past. That is, the ‘problem’ was with the person who has the disability, and we need to fix them.”

According to Makris, the failure of public health practitioners to use social marketing initiatives to engage with the disabled community is twofold.

“First, the definition of disabilities and impairment in public health has never been clearly understood and, secondly, there has been limited interdisciplinary research between public health professionals and those working in the disability sector,” she said. “We can look at our own campus as an example. There’s limited interdisciplinary work being done between the COPH and the College of Community and Behavioral Sciences, which has a strong focus on IDD in their curriculum. I’m hoping that my dissertation focus will help create a wider bridge between not only these two colleges but research work as well.”

Makris said that social marketing could be a bridge between public health practitioners and the disability sector. “Social marketing’s focus has always been on the individual or the community,” she said. “Going forward, needs assessments must assume that limitations in individuals often coexist with strengths. A person’s level of functioning will improve if appropriate personalized supports are provided over a sustained period.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health