Should Health Education Abandon Attitude Change Strategies? Perspectives from Recent Research

Abstract

Educational strategies which emphasize change in attitude and beliefs in a social perspective are reviewed in this article from a larger monograph which reviews studies on health care education from 1961-1966. This review of published material indicates the need for greater attention to methods for bringing health education to individuals through the lay referral system by using channels of social influence and support for attitude and behavior change. Such bringing together of isolated individuals should help achieve preventive health behavior. In addition to creating social networks to help in the education of a population in preventive health care and health care maintenance the need for early diagnosis through surveillance programs is emphasized in this review. In this section cancer studies were reviewed to determine changes in attitude toward various cancers and behavior when confronted with them. Personality aspects should be taken into account when designing preventive health care programs.