Health education at PHC level -- status and strategies
Lal, S.; Jain, R.B.; Khanna, P.; Malik, J.S.
Indian journal of maternal and child health official publication of Indian Maternal and Child Health Association 7(3): 63-68
1996
ISSN/ISBN: 0970-8928 PMID: 12292806 Document Number: 269677
The Government of India's National Health Policy emphasizes the importance of health education programs to primary health care. Implementation of this strategy was evaluated through both quantitative and qualitative methods among 32 multipurpose health workers, 5 health supervisors, 60 anganwadi workers, 32 adult education instructors, 73 school teachers, and 10 women's groups in Haryana, India. Despite the official emphasis on health education, this function is not included in the job descriptions of health workers, training is not provided, and locally relevant IEC materials are not available or distributed. Home visits focus mainly on family planning, deliveries, and malaria and rarely include a health education component. Management of health education is the responsibility of the Block Extension Educator, who failed to distribute many IEC materials or conduct training activities. 62.5% of health workers indicated they used IEC materials only once a month. Moreover, monitoring of health education activities was sporadic and incomplete. Work plans emphasize physical targets (i.e., number of meetings) rather than the quality of educational interventions. No operations research studies were conducted. Overall, these findings suggest a need for integration of health care delivery and communication activities, training of health workers in health education techniques, field evaluation of IEC materials, establishment of a system to provide field workers with feedback on their work, and greater use of mothers' groups and school-based programs for interpersonal communication.