|Basic Steps to Develop Health Education Materials
What is the current problem or situation facing the target population? Is it trichiasis, active trachoma, or both?
Conduct surveys and other research to measure the magnitude of the problem.
What is your communication strategy? How will health education be incorporated into your trachoma control program?
Produce rough drafts of the health education materials, incorporating the information gathered from the research and assessment steps. For each material produced, make three to five different drafts. Allow the target audience to choose the best.
Pre-test the draft materials with focus groups representative of the target audience. Only after you are sure of the product, produce it. Modify the materials according to the results of the pre-test. Pre-test the modified materials and repeat until the target audience is happy.
Train health workers and community volunteers in trachoma control and prevention. Teach them how to use the new materials as a tool for education.
Distribute the materials to the users.
Monitor and Evaluate
Conduct regular supervision of people using the materials to monitor their effectiveness. Use this information for the development of future materials. Evaluate the effect of the program after a couple of years.
Share findings with other partner organizations working in the region. Develop possible collaboration for future health education activities.
Solicit feedback and suggestions from village volunteers over the life of the program. Encourage them to use existing health education materials as guides for their own health lesson development.
By making the health education materials on these pages available to all, the library provides examples from which ministries of health and partner organizations can create their own context-specific tools. This tutorial is intended to assist program managers in developing education materials. Health communication interventions should be part of a strategy based on in-depth knowledge of the target group.
10. Pre-test your draft materials. Visit intervention communities and hold health education sessions with different audiences to measure the community reaction. The more effective the health education material, the more likely community members will engage in discussion. Ask questions to measure the comprehension, appeal, and impact of your materials.
11. Once pre-tested, determine how many copies of the material to produce, create a distribution plan, and develop a training plan to teach health workers how to use the new material. Consider the seasonal calendar of your audience. Avoid debuting new materials in busy seasons.
12. Monitor and evaluate. Make a plan to supervise health education activities using these materials. Visit health workers to discuss their successes and failures. Are the new materials effective? Have they begun to have a measurable impact on the behaviors sought to change? To answer these questions, conduct a follow-up KAP or prevalence survey to measure the effect of the materials on your target audience.
Each page in this library includes medium-specific information about using, designing, and pre-testing health education materials.