TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond Individual-Level Theorizing in Social Norms Research
T2 - How Collective Norms and Media Access Affect Adolescents' Use of Contraception
AU - Sedlander, Erica
AU - Rimal, Rajiv N.
N1 - Funding Information:
Disclaimer: The publication of this article was made possible by the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The opinions or views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - Purpose: The role of mass media in promoting social norms surrounding contraceptive use among adolescents in developing countries has not received much attention. Hence, program planners have little guidance on how to design media messages that take advantage of existing social norms in promoting contraceptive use. Methods: We analyzed data from the Demographic and Health Surveys in Ethiopia and Tanzania, restricting our sample to 15- to 24 year-old adolescents (N = 6,230 and N = 5,138, respectively). We proposed and tested the hypotheses that collective norms around contraception use would be associated with individual contraception use in that area and that this relationship would be stronger when media use is low, than when media use is high. Logistic regressions were run to predict individual-level contraception use from collective norms for contraception use, media use, and their interaction, controlling for age, urban versus rural location, marital status, wealth, and education, taking into account intraclass correlations within clusters. Results: Collective norms were associated with individual contraception use in both samples. Media use attenuated the association between collective norms and contraception use in Ethiopia but not in Tanzania. (β = −.22, p = < .01 in Ethiopia and β = −.08, p = .10 in Tanzania). Conclusions: Mass media can serve as external agents of change to attenuate the impact of collective norms on individual behavior. A deeper examination of how and why media use attenuates the relationship between collective norms and individual contraception use in some subpopulations more than others is warranted.
AB - Purpose: The role of mass media in promoting social norms surrounding contraceptive use among adolescents in developing countries has not received much attention. Hence, program planners have little guidance on how to design media messages that take advantage of existing social norms in promoting contraceptive use. Methods: We analyzed data from the Demographic and Health Surveys in Ethiopia and Tanzania, restricting our sample to 15- to 24 year-old adolescents (N = 6,230 and N = 5,138, respectively). We proposed and tested the hypotheses that collective norms around contraception use would be associated with individual contraception use in that area and that this relationship would be stronger when media use is low, than when media use is high. Logistic regressions were run to predict individual-level contraception use from collective norms for contraception use, media use, and their interaction, controlling for age, urban versus rural location, marital status, wealth, and education, taking into account intraclass correlations within clusters. Results: Collective norms were associated with individual contraception use in both samples. Media use attenuated the association between collective norms and contraception use in Ethiopia but not in Tanzania. (β = −.22, p = < .01 in Ethiopia and β = −.08, p = .10 in Tanzania). Conclusions: Mass media can serve as external agents of change to attenuate the impact of collective norms on individual behavior. A deeper examination of how and why media use attenuates the relationship between collective norms and individual contraception use in some subpopulations more than others is warranted.
KW - Adolescent health
KW - Collective norms
KW - Contraceptive use
KW - Mass media
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.12.020
DO - 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.12.020
M3 - Article
C2 - 30914165
AN - SCOPUS:85062811545
SN - 1054-139X
VL - 64
SP - S31-S36
JO - Journal of Adolescent Health
JF - Journal of Adolescent Health
IS - 4
ER -