THE HEALTH PROBLEMS OF greatest significance today are the chronic diseases. . . . The extent of chronic diseases, various disabling conditions, and the economic burden that they impose have been thoroughly documented. Health education and health educators will be expected to contribute to the reduction of the negative impact of such major health problems as heart disease, cancer, dental disease, mental illness and other neurological disturbances, obesity, accidents, and the adjustments necessary to a productive old age.
The new and unique role of health education in helping to meet these problems can perhaps be clarified through a review of some of the differences between procedures that have been successful in solving the problems of the acute communicable diseases and those that are available for coping with today’s problems.
DISEASE PREVENTION
The tools for dealing with the health conditions of today are not as specific and precise as those that have been available for the contagious diseases. The medical and sanitary sciences have provided public health workers with specific measures for prevention of these diseases—vaccination, immunization, safe water and milk supplies, sanitary sewage disposal, and insect vector control. When properly utilized, these measures have protected people from the several communicable diseases. But even in situations in which individuals do not avail themselves of these protective measures and contract a given disease, there are antibiotics and other chemotherapy agents that are specific and effective. No such specifics exist for preventing the chronic diseases, the degenerative conditions of old age, or accidents.
Medical science has, however, made possible the prevention of the more serious consequences of many of the chronic diseases. . . . No specific preventive is available for accidents or obesity other than changes in behavioral patterns.
Closely related to the lack of specific and precise methods of dealing with the chronic diseases is the difference in the manner in which these diseases occur. The onset of the chronic conditions is much more insidious than was the onset of the acute conditions, such as the contagious diseases. . . . Therefore, the motivation to act with reference to the slowly developing problems of chronic disease is not nearly so great as was the motivation to act in preventing the contagious diseases.HEALTH EDUCATION CONTENT TODAY
The preceding discussion of educational difficulties in coping with today’s health problems emphasizes the challenge with which health educators are faced. Let us look at a few implications of this challenge for educational content and method, and for the appropriate places to concentrate our effort.
If the challenge is to be met, most of the educational efforts must be concentrated upon adults outside the classroom where the problems may arise. It will not suffice to give students in grade school or even in college a body of the latest scientific information and expect them to use the information when they reach the age when chronic diseases are most prevalent. Such an expectation overlooks an important research finding in psychology—we forget rapidly information that is not functional in our daily lives.
But even if people did remember everything they learned in grade school or college, would the latest scientific information of today serve as guides to the behavior of students when they become older? Certainly everyone would hope not, for with the dynamic nature of medical research today, there is every indication that many of the tools for dealing with the diseases of today will become much more precise. If the limited information now available were remembered and used by students in later life, it might serve as a deterrent to the real action the students should take. . . .
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