Preventing HIV infection: educating the general public.
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Americas↗
Biomedical subjects
F Kroger
Publications and source records attributed to F Kroger.
STD content in school health textbooks: an evaluation using the worth assessment procedure.
Classroom education is a key strategy to controlling sexually transmitted diseases in young persons. Textbooks are the major or sole source of STD information for many students. Thirteen secondary level health science textbooks and five sex education textbooks were reviewed to assess their potential contribution to STD control objectives. Worth assessment, a decision analysis tool for helping decision makers choose among complex or maltiattributed alternatives, was used to evaluate the STD content. The review indicated that sex education textbooks are more likely to contribute to STD control objectives than are health science textbooks. Health science textbooks failed to incorporate information on preventive health behaviors. Both types of textbooks present biomedical information primarily, which is generally free of significant errors. The worth assessment method proved to be a useful tool for evaluating the quality of textbook treatment in a specific content area.
Adolescent↗
STD education: challenge for the 80s.
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Curriculum↗
AIDS knowledge gaps: results from the first decade of the epidemic and implications for future public information efforts.
Throughout the first decade of AIDS, certain populations have been disproportionately affected by its spread, particularly men, blacks, Hispanics, and the young. Just as there are population differences in the spread of the disease, there are differences in knowledge about the disease as well. This article applies the knowledge gap framework to examine the nature and magnitude of gaps in knowledge among different populations. The analysis shows that persons of low education lag behind other groups in true-transmission knowledge (i.e., knowledge about ways in which HIV/AIDS actually is transmitted) and false-transmission knowledge (i.e., misconceptions about how the disease is spread).
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
An assessment of the health communication job market across multiple types of organizations.
This study seeks to answer three questions: (1) What is the employment outlook for health communication practitioners? (2) What specialized knowledge and skills should a competent health communication practitioner possess? and (3) How much academic training or professional experience is necessary to become a competent health communication practitioner? To this end, 104 employers of health communication practitioners, representing different types of large, medium, and small companies and organizations from various regions of the United States, were interviewed by telephone. The interview protocol was based on nine core health communication responsibilities identified by a working group of health communication academicians and practitioners. The study suggests a positive employment outlook, where those seeking jobs in health communication before the year 2000 could enjoy varied job opportunities in the wake of an anticipated moderate expansion in the field. Those with 1 to 10 years of experience are most in demand. While an undergraduate degree provides an academic background to perform most responsibilities, for six of the nine core responsibilities an advanced degree was preferred by at least one-third of respondents.
Employment↗
Compliance strategies in a clinic for treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.
Two student interns in health education assessed provider-patient educational interactions in a public clinic for treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. Clear verbal instructions related to specific treatment behaviors were omitted in more than half of the interactions observed. Handout materials were above the probable reading level of most clinic patients. The students introduced informal contract pads and some simplified materials to enhance communication between health care providers and patients. While the students were present to monitor activities, return rates of women for gonorrhea test-of-cure cultures increased from 35.4% to 97.1%; rates for men increased from 32.5% to 67.2%. Return rates for women remained high (73.2%) after the students had left, but returned to near the levels before intervention (36.7%) for men. The results suggest that efforts to counsel patients ought to be studied and monitored with the same degree of rigor accorded other elements of a disease control program.
Community Health Centers↗
Paid advertising for AIDS prevention--would the ends justify the means?
An examination by the Centers for Disease Control and the Research Triangle Institute concluded that "hard-to-reach" populations could be reached with AIDS prevention messages through the broadcast and print media and that a study should be undertaken to assess whether paid placement of these messages could have an effect on HIV-related behaviors. The recommended target population for a study of paid advertising would be sexually active 18-24-year-old black urban dwellers. Its behavioral objectives would include abstinence and safer sex practices. For any evaluation of a paid advertising campaign to be valid, there would have to be extensive audience profiling, research into the development of the message, pretesting of the message, and involvement of the community. The proposed study would include measurement of various "dosage" levels of paid advertising, use of a no-intervention comparison group, and a novel data collection technique. Although a specific target group and specific messages would be involved, the evaluation would make a substantial contribution to resolving the broader issue of whether and how mass media should be used directly or indirectly to change or reinforce health-related behaviors.
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗