How many times have you heard this conversation play out?
“I believe vaccines cause autism.”
“No they don’t, see my data. There are many studies that prove this to be incorrect.”
“Vaccines are full of toxins.”
“Vaccines have low levels of certain substances that are not toxic. The dose makes the poison.”
I have completed my series on models for health education. I want to focus more on something a bit more personal. The big reason I started this blog is to get my research philosophy out there. One of the things I want to do is to do more community-based diverse population research. The primary topic is to see if the emergency preparedness and response messages are working their way to the hardest to reach people.
In my final installment of models for health education I will talk about the PEN-3 model. This model is not as well-known as some of the other models. However, it has a very important use. This model helps to identify specific cultural factors that are important to know to implement a health education program with diverse populations. Dr. Collins Airhihenbuwa developed the PEN-3 model in 1990 (Airhihenbuwa, 1990). The key thing to know about this model is that’s it’s meant for non-Western cultures. It’s easier to implement a program in cultures closer to our own. If the culture is vastly different, you first need to understand their motivations.
The PRECEDE-PROCEED model is probably one of the most talked about in public health. One of the reasons being that it’s a comprehensive model for developing public health education programs. There are a lot of arrows showing the relationship between items within a phase and between phases.
Kerry Chamberlain, PhD, MPH 