Children in Latino and African American families are far more likely to live in urban, high-poverty settings that greatly increase risks to healthy development.
During adolescence, these settings are particularly hazardous for their role in the social transmission of risk behavior.
Community-wide health promotion using local mass media can counteract these influences by reaching preadolescents and adolescents, their parents, and other adults in urban communities with safe-behavior messages.
These messages can be designed to make safer behavior more acceptable and normative in the community, to increase awareness of community resources for adolescents, and to reverse the stereotyping and disregard that characterize media content about impoverished communities.
Evidence is reviewed that, despite their poverty status, African American and Latino communities have considerable social resources to which community-wide health promotion can appeal, including strong family bonds, religious attachment, and concern about the community.
The influence of these resources is exemplified by relatively low rates of adolescent drug use.
Health promotion conducted regularly through local mass media could be an effective strategy to improve the health of adolescents in urban communities.
Mots-clés Pascal : Programme sanitaire, Mass media, Education sanitaire, Adolescent, Milieu urbain, Pauvreté, Ethnie, Noir américain, Latinoaméricain, Etats Unis, Promotion santé, Homme, Amérique du Nord, Amérique
Mots-clés Pascal anglais : Sanitary program, Mass media, Health education, Adolescent, Urban environment, Poverty, Ethnic group, Black American, Latinamerican, United States, Health promotion, Human, North America, America
Notice produite par :
Inist-CNRS - Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique
Cote : 95-0319910
Code Inist : 002B30A03B. Création : 01/03/1996.