9th Annual Meeting of the Health Technology Industry

Social Marketing as Remedy for Health Care Problems

A recent study found an astounding 64% of adult Americans are overweight, directly contributing to the rising costs in health care in the United States, according to Roberta Clarke, Associate Professor of Marketing at Boston University's School of Management.

At the 9th Annual Meeting of the Business and Directives of the Health Technology Industry, held at IESE Business School, Clarke formed a core of panelists who discussed controlling skyrocketing costs and the importance of technological advances in the health care sectors in Europe and in the United States.

The health industry conference was organized in conjunction with FENIN (the Spanish Federation of Health Technology Companies), and is one of IESE's annual series of industry meetings. FENIN is an organization that brings together manufacturers, importers and distributors of health care technology products. Prof. Pedro Nueno of IESE and Werner Knuth, President of FENIN, led the conference.

The conference addressed such issues as opportunities in the health care sector, purchasing management models, and business strategies for the future. Participants included representatives from both the public and private health sectors.

Clarke said the U.S. has historically underinvested in technology in the health care system. She pointed to the bloated marketing budgets of pharmaceutical companies, which far outweigh the money spent on research, and contribute to the high price tag the government incurs on health care.
As a specialist in social marketing - she co-authored what is considered one of the first books on the subject - Clarke suggests social marketing methods can be the bandage used to both cut costs and improve health care quality.

"We have solutions," said Clarke, who received her MBA and Doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. "But they are far away on the horizon. We are not going to develop them tomorrow."

Social marketing, a relatively young discipline, having been conceived in the 1970s, aims to influence social behaviors that don't benefit the marketer, but rather target the audience and the general society. In health issues, this means convincing people to adopt behaviors they don't want, but need, such as eating healthier, getting more exercise and quitting smoking. These tasks are not easy, namely because the benefits cannot be completely guaranteed, she pointed out.
However, the future of health care in the U.S. could depend on these and other methods working.

Said Clarke, "With better social marketing, we know we can change behavior."

The Center for the Investigation of Applied Medicine (CIMA), a biomedical investigation project, also participated in the health industry conference. CIMA, a division of the University of Navarra - IESE's parent institution - was created to help fight incurable diseases that cause significant suffering.