Health awareness days: Sufficient evidence to support the craze?

J. Purtle and L.A. Roman

American Journal of Public Health, 2015, vol. 105, issue 6, 1061-1065

Abstract: Health awareness initiatives are a ubiquitous intervention strategy. Nearly 200 health awareness days, weeks, and months are on the US National Health Observances calendar, and more than 145 awareness day bills have been introduced in Congress since 2005. We contend that health awareness days are not held to appropriate scrutiny given the scale at which they have been embraced and are misaligned with research on the social determinants of health and the tenets of ecological models of health promotion. We examined health awareness days from a critical public health perspective and offer empirically supported recommendations to advance the intervention strategy. If left unchecked, health awareness days may do little more than reinforce ideologies of individual responsibility and the false notion that adverse health outcomes are simply the product of misinformed behaviors. © 2015, American Public Health Association Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: awareness; health education; health promotion; human; organization and management; public health; public opinion; United States, Awareness; Health Education; Health Promotion; Humans; Public Health; Public Opinion; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2015.302621_1

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.302621

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