NCJ Number
130854
Date Published
1989
Length
17 pages
Annotation
Health education about AIDS is likely to be ill-conceived without a critical evaluation of educational strategies and goals.
Abstract
People can learn about health and health-related issues in many different ways. The most familiar model of health education is the information-giving model. This model seeks to change behavior by providing people with the facts about a particular issue. Other health education models have different goals. Some may aim to enhance self-empowerment, the ability to act more rationally and purposefully in the pursuit of self-determined interests, while others may encourage greater community involvement in health issues. Still others may aim to effect far-reaching social change. Many different outcomes may be associated with health education about AIDS and HIV infection, and this is why evaluation is critical. Some outcomes may be cognitive, while others may be attitudinal. Outcome evaluation of health education with a commitment to social transformation is likely to assess the extent to which personal, fleeting, and critical insights have become more public, systematic, and collectively shared. Process evaluation is likely to seek information from various sources to identify competing perspectives on the processes involved in health education. The politics of health education about AIDS are likely to be complex. It is essential that evaluators adopt a multifaceted approach, given the diversity of ways in which health education about AIDS can take place and the varied goals of health education models. 27 references and 1 table