Goal 3: Encourage social norms that promote safety and health
Social norms are the values, beliefs, attitudes, and/or behaviors shared by a group of people. Social norms vary by social group, and individuals may alter their behavior to conform to different groups. Social norms can protect against violence, but they can also encourage violence. For instance, cultural acceptance of violence, either as a normal method of resolving conflict or as a usual part of rearing a child, is a risk factor for all types of interpersonal violence.
The social norms approach to health promotion assumes that people have misperceptions of the attitudes and behavior of others in their peer groups or communities. For example, a perception might be that most adolescents in Utah vape nicotine, but the data show us that only 12.4% of Utah adolescents actually vape. This misperception may be used by individuals to justify vaping thereby increasing the prevalence.
Additionally, people are less likely to speak out against a perceived norm, reinforcing social tolerance of it. The social norms approach seeks to correct these misperceptions by giving people a more realistic sense of the actual social norms in the community. Social norms approaches such as bystander interventions have also reported some success in changing the attitudes of male peer groups towards risky sexual behaviors.
Approaches
Evidence-based or evidence informed approaches to encourage social norms that promote safety and health:
Change misperceptions about community social norms through education
Increase access and utilization of peer norm programs
Provide campaigns to support parents and positive parenting
Encourage policies shown to reduce corporal punishment
Bystander approaches
Mobilizing men and boys
Trauma informed approach
Street outreach
Community norms change programs
Enhance primary care to include screening assessments (eg, SEEK)
Ensure services are victim-centered
Continue effective treatment modalities with affected clients
Success is:
Increase the number of community organizations per 100,000 population
Increase the percentage of adults aged 25+ who have a Bachelor’s degree or higher
Increase the High School cohort graduation rate
Increase the percentage of registered voters voting the last election
Decrease the percentage of children who report neglect or physical/sexual abuse