Plan for evaluation of a selected health education program in Thailand

Includes bibliographical references (pages 51-53)The objective of this graduate project is to plan for evaluation of a health education program in the village Health and Sanitation Project in Thailand (VHSP). The evaluation design that was suggested in this graduate project in evaluating the effectiveness of health education methods would, in turn, help planners or health educators in developing the educational components in VHSP. The presently employed health education methods emphasize working through community committees; other methods such as one to one, large group meeting, and mass communication, are less frequently employed in the project. These methods are sometimes even used in combination with each other. Using the community committee is a theoretical method of developing the community but not always the most pragmatic one particularly in rural Thai society where primary relationships predominate and people are not used to work through committees or group process. Accordingly, the evaluative design in this thesis will be helpful in selecting the appropriate methods for approaching the rural Thai people. The evaluative design was developed on the basis of theoretical concepts and the past experience of the investigator. The effectiveness of health education methods was measured by the technique of scoring the observed behavioral changes of the rural people in using sanitary latrines, drinking safe water, and keeping the house and yard clean. The preceding were the main criteria in determining the goal-achievement of the project. The design uses analysis of variance and Scheffe' test to test for significant difference of actual behavioral changes among the different observations and to make a comparison of each pair of educational methods. The Village Health and Sanitation Project is still an important one among the intensive health programs in operation to reduce the prevalence of intestinal disease, the major cause of illness and death among the rural Thai people. The new educational methods which are evaluated and selected by using the suggested design will be useful to develop the Village Health and Sanitation Project in achieving the final goal, that of reducing the morbidity and mortality rate caused by intestinal disease