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• Effect sizes of the reviewed studies were consistently small.
• Compared with medium or large effect sizes, small effects are difficult to detect through casual observation but can represent significant changes when applied at a population level.
• In the reviews examined for this study, reviewers deemed approximately three-quarters of the studies "effective," suggesting that communication campaigns do not always hit their mark in influencing target audiences.
• Because the effects of communication campaigns are small, they might have beneficial effects at the population level, but those effects might still not be easily observable.
• The modest and replicated success of public health communication campaigns suggests that such campaigns might also be successful in the national security sector.

Communication campaigns seek to change audiences' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors by disseminating core message themes through various media channels, such as television, radio, print, and social media. Campaigns focused on national security that are conducted by U.S. government agencies can be hard to evaluate because of factors including unstable or violent conditions and political sensitivities. As a consequence, there is little rigorous analysis of what contributes to a successful campaign.

In contrast, communication campaigns have long been used in the public health field, and a large number of evaluations have used sophisticated methods to assess campaign effectiveness. Through a systematic review of 41 meta-analytic and systematic reviews of public health communication campaigns focused on mass media or social marketing, the authors explored the components of successful campaigns and whether target audiences' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors changed. They identified insights relevant to the design and execution of campaigns focused on national security, such as the inform, influence, and persuade campaigns conducted by the U.S. Army's psychological operations forces in support of U.S. overseas contingency operations.

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