Toward an educated health consumer

Focus in this preventive medicine monograph for health professionals is on consumer health education and the current and potential effects of mass communication on the quality of medical care. Following an introduction, the content is presented in four chapters. Chapter 1 covers the state of the art in consumer health education and discusses three models of health education, the research bases of health education, attitudes and knowledge about both health and illness, illness behavior, and implementing programs of preventive medicine. The second chapter on the communications revolution first presents an overview of the communication process and mass media and then discusses the rise of specialism, consumerism and the message of the media (particularly television), and health behavior and mass communication. Chapter 3 on quality medical care covers the origins of the health consumer; legislative initiatives, such as national health insurance, professional standards review organizations, and health maintenance organizations; and quality assessment including the establishment of a physician-consumer alliance and outcome measures. The last chapter briefly presents a strategy for health education. Each of the four chapters concludes with an extensive bibliography.