5. Campaign appeals. Campaigns must be specific to individuals in order to appeal to their values and have the desired effect.

The campaign for breast cancer screening is very specific to the individual. In a general sense, the idea of "values" is addressed in that the campaign is asking its audience to do something that will benefit the audience's health. This concept is not an overriding concern of the case. It should be noted, however, that a critical examination of the campaign as to its appeal to individuals was not, to the author's knowledge, undertaken.

6. Preventative behaviour. Long-term prevention goals are difficult to achieve because the rewards are delayed and are not certain.

This is true of the breast cancer screening campaign. The message is essentially "Do this now so something bad does not happen in the future." The message has its own limitations, regardless of the channels used to communicate it. This handicap is not referred to in the "Standards" document. The suggested letter does refer to breast cancer screening as a step towards decreasing the recipient's chance of developing breast cancer, the preventative message, but the language is not motivational, but informational (Appendix D).

There was no consideration of this handicap of the message in the activities undertaken by either corporation in Region 2 or 6. It is the opinion of the author that in a large bureaucratic system such as a department of health, consideration of such factors is not undertaken because the message will not be changed as a result of such consideration, and the tasks will be the same. However, recognising the difficulties in communicating a message does have merit in that it informs the decision on the means to communicate.

7. Timeliness, compatibility and accessibility. The message of a campaign must be timely and culturally acceptable and the channels used must be available to the target audience.

In societal terms, health messages are probably better received now than in the past. Discussions of sexuality, prostrate cancer and menopause are now common in the public domain whereas historically such discussions were taboo. One could conclude that the breast cancer screening message was culturally acceptable, although older segments of the population might have more reluctance to consider the issue than the younger segments.