Making health education work

This article assembles ideas, experience and advice drawn from over 100 health education programs. Seventeen of them were examined in fine detail at 3 regional workshops. The major issues arising out of these studies were then further reviewed by top experts in health related fields, who added their own experience and interpretation at the National Conference on Consumer Health Education in October, 1974. Publication of the work of this Project has a double purpose: to help those already busy carrying out health education programs, and to help the many others who, in the inevitable course of health care progress, will soon become involved with health education, administering it, paying for it, or using it. The material presented was developed over the past 3 yr under the guidance of a General Advisory Committee, whose members were appointed by the Health Education Section of the American Public Health Association and the Society for Public Health Education. The committee became involved in this effort as a response to a request asking how a particular drug company could best contribute to the health education of low income and minority consumers.