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Community Health faculty take cues from "Million Mom March"
Author: Office of Marketing & Communications
Posted: December 1, 2003

On Mother's Day 2000, the largest-ever public advocacy event for gun safety policies took place in Washington, D.C. and at 70 sites around the country: the "Million Mom March." Analysis of the event by researchers at PSU revealed several factors which made the march such a success-factors that may help future advocacy campaigns succeed.

Lawrence Wallack, director of PSU's School of Community Health, and researchers Liana Winett and Linda Nettekoven, undertook an in-depth study of the Million Mom March with funding from a $300,000 Innovators Award to Combat Substance Abuse from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The team determined that there were several factors that led to the march's effectiveness for issue advocacy: its historic timing (on the heels of several school shootings), a universal message that depoliticized the inherently political gun-control issue (protecting children), and multiple opportunities for individuals to participate. Their findings will be published this month in the Journal of Public Health Policy.