Effect of mass media campaign to reduce socioeconomic differences in women's awareness and behaviour concerning use of folic acid: cross sectional study

Subjects, methods, and results

We measured the effect of the campaign by comparing two cross sectional studies—one conducted before the campaign and one conducted after the campaign We asked pregnant women in four regions of the Netherlands attending their first or second antenatal visit to fill out a questionnaire; all did so.

We took highest fulfilled education, a recognised indicator of socioeconomic status, and merged it into three levels: low, middle, and high. We used multivariate logistic regression to calculate adjusted odds ratios for high versus low education. The methodology has been described elsewhere.2

In both studies, 90% of the pregnancies were planned. After the campaign, 89.1% (1437/1612) of the respondents had heard about folic acid and 76.9% (1240) had heard about it before their pregnancy; the table shows how this is related to level of education.

In 1996, 53.5% (862) of all the respondents used folic acid (25.1% (411/1636) in 1995) in some part of the advised period (from 4 weeks before conception to 8 weeks after) and 21.0% (339) used it during the entire advised period (4.8% (78) in 1995). The adjusted odds ratios for education and use of folic acid decreased after the campaign but were not statistically significant (P=0.99 for some use and P=0.86 for use during entire period).

In 1996, 25.8% (146/565) of the women who knew about folic acid before their pregnancy and who were aware of the advised period did not take it (49.2% (184/374) in 1995). The reasons for not taking folic acid did not differ much before and after the campaign. The main reasons were being pregnant already; disliking taking drugs during pregnancy; eating healthy food, or not thinking about the possibility of taking folic acid. Reasons for not taking folic acid were not associated with level of education.

After the campaign, of the informed women who did not take folic acid, 37.8% (28/74) of high educated women versus 54.5% (60/110) of low educated women (P=0.02) would consider taking folic acid in a next pregnancy.

Finally, we sought the opinion of women who did not take folic acid about fortification of food with folic acid (only 1996 survey) Overall, 63.6% (311/489) preferred to take folic acid in food rather than by tablet; this was not associated with level of education.

Comment

After the 1995 campaign in the Netherlands, awareness and use of folic acid had increased considerably. Before the campaign an increase of the knowledge to match the level of knowledge of adverse effects of alcohol and smoking was considered adequate—that is, 70% of women planning a pregnancy should know about the advice. The result of our study (in 1996, 76.9% had heard about folic acid before pregnancy) meets this criterion and is thus satisfactory. However, odds ratios for socioeconomic differences in awareness and use of folic acid have not significantly decreased.

For low educated women an increase in the percentage aware of folic acid before pregnancy of 36% was achieved, whereas the increase for high educated women was 31%. The increase in use of folic acid was 29% for low educated women and 31% for high educated women, and for use during the entire advised period the increase was 15% for low educated women and 22% for high educated women. Thus it is clear that low educated women have profited from the campaign, but that socioeconomic differences remained.