Communicating about the social determinants of health: development of a local brand.

Background: Successful comprehensive population-based approaches to chronic disease prevention leverage mass media to amplify messages and support a culture of health. We report on a community-engaged formative evaluation to segment audiences and identify major themes to guide campaign message development for a transformative health communication campaign.

Methods: Four key phases of campaign development: (I) Formative evaluation to identify priorities, guiding themes, and audience segments (interviews/focus groups with residents, = 85; representatives of community-based partner organizations, = 10); (II) Brand development (focus groups and closed-ended surveys; = 56); (III) Message testing approaches to verbal and visual appeals (= 50 resident intercept interviews); (IV) Workshop (= 26 participants representing 15 organizations).