Evidence-Based Social Marketing Campaign With Social Contact to Address Stigma Associated With Substance Use and Support for Harm Reduction in Indiana

Stigma, or the negative beliefs and attitudes surrounding substance use disorders, is a complex process that acts as a barrier to expanding harm-reduction services. Communication campaigns with educational and social contact components show promise in addressing stigma but are similarly complex and require defining which existing community views to target and with what content. To this end, we leveraged a social marketing approach to integrate evidence on stigmatizing views from the community with expertise from academic researchers and product development from a marketing firm for the Connection is Hope: End Stigma campaign in Fayette County, Indiana. The resulting 6-month marketing plan included two components: social media (Facebook) and social contact (in-person networking and social events). Awareness of and information-seeking on harm-reduction activities in Fayette County and positive feedback to campaign products increased over the course of the campaign despite low implementation fidelity of the social contact component. A social marketing approach shows promise in triangulating expertise to create awareness for substance use and harm-reduction services, which can address inaccurate beliefs leading to stigma. However, triangulating expertise requires increased attention to participatory decision-making to ensure community ownership and create opportunities for positive social contact.