| Course | PUBH 6333 Health Communication in the 21st Century |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 2 |
| Paper type | Audience analysis brief |
| Length | About 700 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Master of Public Health (MPH) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PUBH 6333 Week 2
Not "Parents," but the Man on the Seat: An Audience Analysis Narrowing a County Mower Safety Campaign to Men Who Mow With Young Children in Their Care, and Describing What They Believe, Whom They Trust and What They Read
Student Name
Walden University
PUBH 6333: Health Communication in the 21st Century
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Not "Parents," but the Man on the Seat: An Audience Analysis Narrowing a County Mower Safety Campaign to Men Who Mow With Young Children in Their Care, and Describing What They Believe, Whom They Trust and What They Read
From a Category to a Group That Can Be Tested
The county's current mower message is addressed to "parents," a category too broad to test or reach. The evidence points to a narrower group. Among 140 children badly hurt by riding mowers whose families answered one survey, the person driving was male in 77% of incidents, the child's father or stepfather in almost half, and 69% of injured children were bystanders while 24% were riding on the mower (Jennissen et al., 2023). The decisive actor is the person driving. This analysis therefore defines the primary audience as men in Pruett County, a composite rural county, who operate riding mowers on lots of an acre or more and care for children under six at least once a week, whether as fathers, stepfathers or grandfathers. Slater (1996) argues that audience segments are useful when their members share the beliefs and channels that will decide a campaign's success, not merely a demographic label; this group shares the behavior that matters.
Two Personas
Two composite personas stand for the segment. Dale, 64, a retired machinist, mows two and a half acres every Saturday while his three grandchildren, the oldest five, visit. Travis, 33, a lineman for the electric cooperative, mows an acre after work while his toddler and four-year-old play in the yard and his partner works an evening shift. Later materials are tested with men who match each.
What They Already Believe
Interviews with six men at the county fair's farm equipment tent, conducted by extension staff the previous summer, suggest four beliefs. First, safety around machinery is a matter of control and experience: "I've run equipment my whole life." Second, a child held on the lap is safer than a child loose in the yard. Third, rides are a family tradition and a reward; several men remembered riding with their own fathers. Fourth, injuries happen to careless people, not to them. Each belief makes the current message easy to agree with and easy to ignore.
Whose Words They Trust
The men named the people they listen to about equipment: the dealer who services their mower, staff at the farm supply store, the county extension agent and, for the younger men, their children's pediatric clinic. Health department messages ranked low; one man called them "for town people." Kreuter and Wray (2003) describe targeted communication as matching messages to a group's shared characteristics, and here the characteristic that matters most is trust in people who know machines.
What They Read and Hear
Table 1
Channels Named by the Segment
| Channel | Dale's group | Travis's group | Why it matters | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mower dealer service tag and counter | Yes | Yes | Contact at the moment of maintenance | |
| Farm supply store counter | Yes | Yes | Weekly visit in mowing season | |
| Local radio farm report | Yes | Rarely | Morning routine | |
| Cooperative member magazine | Yes | Sometimes | Trusted, printed, kept | |
| Pediatric well-child visit | No | Yes | Contact through children | |
| Social media groups | Rarely | Yes | Local buy-and-sell and community pages | |
Note. Based on composite interviews summarized for this course.
What This Means for the Campaign
The message must come through people who know machines, name the behavior plainly (no rides, children inside while mowing) and answer the belief that control equals safety. It should use the injury facts most relevant to the segment's beliefs: that rides teach children to approach the mower, and that most serious injuries to bystanders happen in reverse. National emergency department data show the problem is common, with about 9,400 young people treated each year in 1990 to 2004 (Vollman & Smith, 2006), but for this audience a single local story told by a dealer may move more than the national figure.
Who Is Left Out, and Why
Women who mow, teenagers who mow for neighbors and families with push mowers are outside the primary segment. They matter, but the evidence on who operates riding mowers in serious incidents points first to men caring for young children.
References
Jennissen, C. A., Krupp, T. D., Vakkalanka, J. P., & Hoogerwerf, P. J. (2023). Pediatric lawn mower-related injuries and contributing factors for bystander injuries. Injury Epidemiology, 10(Suppl. 1), Article 51. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-023-00468-z
Kreuter, M. W., & Wray, R. J. (2003). Tailored and targeted health communication: Strategies for enhancing information relevance. American Journal of Health Behavior, 27(Suppl. 3), S227-S232. https://doi.org/10.5993/AJHB.27.1.s3.6
Slater, M. D. (1996). Theory and method in health audience segmentation. Journal of Health Communication, 1(3), 267-283. https://doi.org/10.1080/108107396128059
Vollman, D., & Smith, G. A. (2006). Epidemiology of lawn mower-related injuries to children in the United States, 1990-2004. Pediatrics, 118(2), e273-e278. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2006-0056
What the PUBH 6333 Week 2 instructions ask for
Audience analysis assignments ask students to define the group a health communication effort will address and describe what members know, believe, value and pay attention to. Prompts usually require a rationale for the segment, demographic and psychographic description, current beliefs or behaviors related to the issue, trusted sources and preferred channels, often with personas. Students are expected to support the segment choice with data on who is affected or who controls the behavior. Two or three pages, with a table of channels by persona, is the usual size. Instructors reward segments narrow enough to test with real people and descriptions grounded in evidence or interviews rather than stereotypes, and they appreciate a short note on who the segment leaves out.
How the PUBH 6333 Week 2 example is put together
The brief opens by explaining why "parents" is too broad and uses injury survey data on operators to justify a narrower segment, citing segmentation theory. Two composite personas follow. A section reports four beliefs heard in interviews, each linked to how it blunts the current message. Trusted messengers are named, with targeting theory used to explain why trust in equipment experts matters. A table compares channels for the two personas. A section draws implications for message and messenger, and a closing paragraph names who is outside the segment and why. The personas are composite and labeled that way, and each later week tests materials with men who match them. The interviews behind the beliefs section are summarized rather than quoted at length.
Reading the PUBH 6333 Week 2 rubric
Audience analysis rubrics focus on the justification of the segment, the depth of description and the usefulness of the analysis for design. Graders want to see why this group was chosen, ideally from evidence about who is affected or who acts. Description should cover beliefs and trusted sources, not only demographics. Personas earn credit when they are realistic and tied to data. The analysis should lead to concrete implications for messages and channels. Citing segmentation or targeting research correctly, and laying channels out in a table, finishes a strong analysis. Analyses that rely on assumptions about a group without evidence lose points on description. Personas that carry ages, routines and a reason they matter to the risk read as tools rather than decoration. Naming trusted messengers outside the health sector is often what lifts an analysis from adequate to strong.
PUBH 6333 Week 2 help from the desk
Students often choose a segment because it is convenient rather than because it controls the behavior. Ask who makes the decision the campaign wants to change, and use data to show it. Describe what the group believes about the risk in their words. Find out whom they trust, which may not be health agencies. Build personas from real information. Name who is left out. If you need an audience analysis for your own campaign topic, send the topic and any data you have. Talk to a few people in the group before writing, even informally, and note the words they use for the risk. Keep personas short enough to remember.
Get a PUBH 6333 Week 2 example written to your instructions
Tell the desk which audience your section assigned and include the prompt with its rubric; the analysis is narrowed to that group, with its sources named. Your first one carries no charge and comes back within 24 to 48 hours. Ruth and the lunch program are composites, so no real person's circumstances are described or collected.
More PUBH 6333 papers and MPH samples
- PUBH 6333 Week 1: Discussion Post
- PUBH 6333 Week 3: Plain-Language Rewrite
- PUBH 6333 Week 4: Channel Rationale
- PUBH 6333 Week 5: Pretest Plan
- PUBH 6333 Week 6: Risk Numbers Memo
- PUBH 6333 Week 7: Peer Critique
- PUBH 6333 Week 8: Materials Packet
- PUBH 6333 Week 9: Correction Memo
- PUBH 6333 Week 10: Evaluation Memo
- PUBH 6333 Week 11: Campaign Brief
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- PUBH 6213 Week 2: Eligibility Memo
- HLTH 6005 Week 2: Role Comparison Paper
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PUBH 6333 Week 2 questions, answered
Where can I find a free PUBH 6333 Week 2 sample paper?
The Week 2 audience analysis is shown above in full, narrowing a mower safety campaign to men who mow with young children around.
Why not target parents in a mower safety campaign?
The driver decides whether children ride or play nearby, and injury surveys show drivers were usually men, often fathers.
What beliefs block the current message?
That safety comes from control, a child on the lap is safe, rides are tradition and injuries happen to careless people.
Which messengers does this audience trust?
Mower dealers, farm supply staff, the extension agent and, for younger fathers, pediatric clinics.
What is audience segmentation?
Dividing a population into groups that share beliefs and channels relevant to the campaign, not only demographics.