HEALTH-EDUCATION INTERVENTION STRATEGIES - RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE-RESEARCH

While the ultimate goal of health education interventions is to positi vely influence health status, more proximal indicators of success are changes in intermediate outcomes, or impact. Because health education interventions work through intermediate outcomes, the linkage to healt h status is often assumed to be at a conceptual or theoretical level. The term health education intervention strategy is a heuristic device used to conceptualize and organize a large variety of activities. Ther e is a wide range of studies and reports in the literature that either test specific intervention strategies or report on larger health educ ation efforts combining several strategies. This article organizes the discussion to focus on individual-, community-, and policy-level inte rventions. Mass communications are also considered, and the authors co mment on program planning issues that cut across specific intervention s at the individual, community, and policy levels. Eleven recommendati ons are offered for future health education intervention research.