Social Marketing to Promote Nutrition Assistance Programs

Existing nutrition assistance programs are often underutilized. Efforts are needed to improve awareness, access, and participation in available programs. We describe social marketing as a promising approach for raising awareness and use of nutrition assistance programs. As background to this public health imperative, we summarize trends in food insecurity and current use of existing federal nutrition assistance programs. We introduce social marketing as a possible approach to engage stakeholders in efforts to connect at-risk populations with existing resources. The tenants and processes of social marketing are described and applied to federal nutrition assistance programs.