Advocating for Behavior Change With Education

Advocating for change in medical legislation.

Advocacy is becoming an increasingly important role for physicians, and there is extraordinary value to becoming effective advocates on behalf of our patients. Until recently, advocacy was not a formal part of medical school or residency curricula. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has published an extensive overview of advocacy for the pediatrician.1 This online guide breaks down legisl...

Facilitating behavior change with low-literacy patient education materials.

OBJECTIVE To describe a process for developing low-literacy health education materials that increase knowledge and activate patients toward healthier behaviors. METHODS We developed a theoretically informed process for developing educational materials. This process included convening a multidisciplinary creative team, soliciting stakeholder input, identifying key concepts to be communicated, ...

Advocating for family medicine.

Advocating for the advocate.

In 1849, German pathologist Rudolf Virchow, regarded as the father of modern pathology, released a report that stunned the medical establishment. His report, commissioned by the Prussian government to investigate a typhus epidemic in Upper Silesia, a poor rural area of ethnic Poles, advocated 4 “radical” recommendations: the introduction of Polish as an official language, democratic self-govern...

Advocating for cervical cancer prevention.

Cervical cancer is a significant health problem among women in developing countries. Contributing to the cervical cancer health burden in many countries is a lack of understanding and political will to address the problem. Broad-based advocacy efforts that draw on research and program findings from developing-country settings are key to gaining program and policy support, as are cost-effectiven...