Jesse R. Catlin

Transforming Consumer Health

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is intended to transform the U.S. health care system. Its success will require the transformation of consumers’ views about health and their willingness to participate in healthful behaviors. Focusing on three barriers to consumers’ engagement in healthful behaviors, the authors review the research literature and suggest opportunities for further research. Using a social marketing perspective, they suggest actions for health care providers, marketers, and policy makers to help overcome these barriers.

Managing the Tensions at the Intersection of the Triple Bottom Line: A Paradox Theory Approach to Sustainability Management

Corporate sustainability management encompasses multiple dimensions: environmental, social, and economic. Companies are increasingly evaluated within the public sphere, and within their own organizations, according to the degree to which they are perceived to simultaneously promote this nexus of virtues. This article seeks to explore the tensions frequently faced by organizations that strive to manage these dimensions and the role of public policy in that pursuit. A multiple–case study approach is utilized in which the authors selected case organizations according to whether they were attempting to manage the three dimensions of sustainability. The authors utilize paradox theory and a typology provided by previous research to understand the nature of the tensions that emerge in the selected case study organizations. They extend this previous work by examining the role of public policy in providing the situational conditions to make these paradoxical tensions salient, and they examine organizational responses to these conditions. Directions for firms, policy makers, and future researchers are provided on the basis of this studys findings.

Is Your Product Facing the Ad's Center? Facing Direction Affects Processing Fluency and Ad Evaluation

This research investigates a frequently encountered and important decision faced by advertisers: how to face profile images of products in advertisements. Three empirical studies find support for a profile-fluency effect: Profile images of products facing inward (versus outward) toward the center (versus edge) of an ad are easier for consumers to process and result in more positive consumer evaluations. In addition, there is evidence that this effect depends on the shopping goal of the consumer. The results have clear implications for current practices in advertising and offer opportunities for future research.

The determinants of tobacco control in Europe:A research note

Abstract A series of Probit regressions are estimated to assess the determinants of tobacco control laws in a cross-section of European countries. Although significance is sparse amongst several of the variables included in the analysis, we do find a tendency for the probability of tobacco control to be higher in lower income non-EU countries, with larger shares of government health care expenditures.

The Effectiveness of Nonprescription Drug Labels in the United States: Insights from Recent Research and Opportunities for the Future

Despite providing a consistent and comprehensible format for over-the-counter (OTC) drug communication, research suggests important limitations in the communication effectiveness of the Drug Facts Label required on OTC drugs in the United States. This literature is reviewed and some of these critical limitations of the Drug Facts Label (DFL) highlighted. These include difficulty communicating complex information that requires integration of multiple pieces of label information and limited adaptability to serve the unique needs of individual populations (e.g., low literacy or older consumers). Potential ways to improve the DFL’s communication effectiveness are identified along with complementary opportunities to improve OTC drug communication by leveraging the role of pharmacists and use of adjunctive technologies.

An Investigation of Consumer and Doctor Regulatory Beliefs and Regulatory Knowledge about Pharmaceutical Drug Promotions

Pharmaceutical drug companies engage in numerous promotional activities—from advertising to sales calls. Yet little is known about whether consumers or doctors believe these activities are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or whether their beliefs are accurate. We refer to these constructs as regulatory beliefs and regulatory knowledge, and we introduce and partially test a conceptual model including them. Specifically, we surveyed 311 consumers and 104 doctors about 24 different marketing-type activities undertaken by pharmaceutical drug companies, and assessed their persuasion knowledge, regulatory beliefs, and regulatory knowledge. We found that both groups, but especially doctors, had high persuasion knowledge, whereas doctors had weaker regulatory beliefs about FDA oversight; on regulatory knowledge both groups manifested comparable and substantial deficits. This research contributes theoretically by introducing the constructs of regulatory beliefs and regulatory knowledge, and finding that expertise in this context influences regulatory beliefs but not knowledge.