EDITORIAL

The challenge of Health Education

Monday,  December 5, 2005

The recent diabetes campaign, as well as last week’s launch here of the Caribbean anti-AIDS campaign and no doubt soon an anti-smoking drive all form an important message – Health Education needs to be a priority for all.

Health Education campaigns concerning everything about being well from eating right to getting cholesterol levels tested, are important to modern economies.

Healthy societies are productive and successful ones.

Helping people to avoiding many common illnesses is sometimes down to good education.

These crusades about healthy diets and exercise can reduce the risk of many serious conditions from diabetes to heart disease if the message is right.

The newly launched AIDS campaign here: ‘Faces’ is using strong imagery to deliver an important message.

There are many barriers to be broken down with this particular disease because of its association with sex and our cultural preference for avoiding discussing such an intimate act. 

Unfortunately however, on this one it is hard to avoid the subject and it is heartening to see that this campaign does not avoid the nitty-gritty of the disease’s most common mode of transmission.

Sometimes it is important to shock societies into better and more healthier behaviour patterns. When the anti-smoking campaign begins here in earnest, with the ban in public places of tobacco use, we may need to use graphic imagery of the damage smoking does to the body, among other things, to turn the tide away from nicotine addiction here as it is being turned in both North America and Europe.

Another opportunity for shock tactics is the campaign to prevent residents here drinking and driving over the holiday period. Sometimes using graphic images of those who have lost their lives during drink-driving accidents, can shock people into thinking again before they step into their car.

When it comes to healthier behavior, people need to be constantly reminded about what can be done to avoid premature death.

From dealing with drug misuse, to regular medical checks, drinking and driving, diabetes, mammograms for women and hard-hitting campaigns about AIIDS, societies need facts, to make better choices.

However , we also need to consider how our own society here in Cayman changes and modifies behaviour within a cultural context. If it is socially acceptable to smoke or drive after drinking then health education alone can fail.

Issues like drug misuse, excessive drinking or smoking need to be made socially unacceptable to reduce their use.

Banning smoking from so many places around the world has had a tremendous impact on reducing the habit and a great deal of success in improving the health of those who have quit because it becomes increasingly difficult to do it.

In the United Kingdom in particular drinking and driving has been greatly reduced over the years through shock campaigns, by the police convincing a very big population that they are everywhere when it comes to drunk-drivers, through very heavy penalties and through creative campaigns that have made the two acts of drinking and driving together socially unacceptable.

There is a need for the people of the Cayman Islands to be a healthy society so that our economic prosperity continues and we have a healthy happy work force. We have managed to keep the prevalence of HIV/AIDS down to a minimum here.

It is also time to face the challenge of health education all round.

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