Attitudes toward, and beliefs about, people with disabilities are important determinants of social inclusion. Misconceptions, negative attitudes and a lack of knowledge can affect many aspects of life for people with disabilities, including employment opportunities. Existing research on community attitudes toward inclusion of people with disabilities, and employer attitudes toward workers with disabilities, indicates that stigmatisation is still prevalent. Changing negative community and employer attitudes toward people with disabilities, and challenging stigma, is likely to make a positive contribution toward greater inclusion.

Social marketing is an approach commonly used in attempts to influence community attitudes and reduce stigma. However, the ability of such campaigns to affect long-term change in community attitudes is still unclear. More specifically, the creative components of disability inclusion campaigns that work to maximise their effectiveness has received very little attention from the marketing discipline.

This report summarises the results of a rapid review of recent (2011–2016) literature on community and employer attitudes toward inclusion of people with disabilities. It also reviews key social marketing campaigns that aimed to improve attitudes toward inclusion of people with disabilities, including evaluations of their effectiveness, in order to provide evidence-based recommendations for future social marketing campaigns.