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invited audiences, in a lecture room on the floor above the
Empress Rooms (seating capacity sixty persons). Programmes
consisted of films on Civil Defence matters, public health, home
safety, food hygiene, atmospheric pollution, etc.
A talk on "Infestation Control in Business Premises" was
given to food traders in the borough in the lecture room above
the Empress Rooms. The speaker was a senior officer of the
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Infestation Control
Division) and invitations were sent to all food traders in the
borough.
Advance publicity took the form of advertisements in the
local newspapers, posters, handbills, bookmarks in the public
libraries, etc. The Kensington Chamber of Commerce "Shopping
Week" was held during the same week as the Exhibition, and the
Chamber of Commerce advertised the Exhibition in a special booklet
which was produced by them.
One or more members of the staff were present at all times
to answer questions from members of the public or to explain the
exhibits, and the opportunity was taken to distribute suitable
leaflets and propaganda material.
General
Health education is being increasingly recognised as a vital
part of the public health service and in his report for the year
1953, the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health comments
as follows
"On the occasion of the establishment of the
Ministry of Health, in 1919, special attention was
directed to the need for regarding public health education
as an essential part of any national health policy. The
passing of time has seen a growing interest in the
instruction in the principles and practice of hygiene
throughout the whole field of preventive medicine.
Progress, which at first was slow and uneven, has now
so far developed that there must be few public health
departments in the country where health education
receives indifferent attention. Prom the early
beginnings of "Health Weeks" and the occasional
publication of leaflets and pamphlets, followed later
by regular issues of popular health journals, health
education has come to mean something more than a
subsidiary function and responsibility; it is now
regarded as a primary activity of local authorities."
In addition to the above-mentioned Exhibition, the public
health department has organised in the past two or three years, a
food hygiene exhibition and several smaller campaigns, mainly
in connection with flies, nuisances from dogs and home safety.
The department also participated in a London County Council
Divisional Health Exhibition at Hammersmith in 1954. Whilst
these periodic campaigns are an extremely valuable form of health
propaganda, they are soon forgotten, and there is need for a more
continuous form of health education.
This has been accomplished by the distribution each month of
copies of "Better Health" (the monthly journal of the Central
Council for Health Education) to clubs, hospitals and various other
organisations in the borough; by the display of suitable posters
on the ex-Empire Marketing Board poster frames and other sites in
Kensington; and by the distribution of booklets, bookmarks,
leaflets, posters, etc., dealing with such matters as food hygiene,
food poisoning, infectious diseases, home safety, etc.