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Health education material—As already mentioned, the Council mostly draws on other
agencies for literature, but it has itself produced leaflets on such topics as lung cancer, oil
heaters and general guidance to school leavers. To a limited extent some written material
has been produced in foreign languages, i.e. Arabic, Bengali, French, German, Greek,
Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu, to meet local needs.
The central office distributes over 400 different leaflets and booklets and some 250
posters and wall charts produced by related organisations. Over 900,000 leaflets, 90,000
bookmarks and 24,000 posters are used annually.
Local distribution is mainly through the Council's own channels but the co-operation of
the metropolitan borough councils is sought and obtained as regards their libraries, notice
boards, etc.
In addition to the large central library previously mentioned, smaller libraries are
maintained at the nine divisional offices.
There has been an increasing demand for films and filmstrips in the presentation of talks
and discussions, as indicated in the following table of requests received from divisions:
1957 1958 1959 1960 1961
Films 270 325 364 473 675
Filmstrips . 477 446 977 1,094 955
The department's own library provided films on 199 occasions and all the filmstrips. In
addition to those supplied centrally, divisions hold a number of filmstrips for exclusive
local use.
Assessment of results—In the day-to-day teaching and publicity, a most effective
method has been the personal approach by talks to the individual or to small groups of
people to whom the particular subject is of immediate interest, the lectures being supplemented
as appropriate by posters, leaflets, flannelgraphs, films, filmstrips, etc. Though it is
extremely difficult to assess the impact made on the particular public to which health
education is directed, an attempt was made when a polio campaign was held in the Spring
of 1960. An enquiry showed that of a sample of 2,116 who attended clinics for immunisation,
the greatest response attributed to an advertising medium was due to posters and
press advertisements.

* In total these exceed 100 per cent. because some were influenced by more than one medium.
A number of those who did not admit to having seen any publicity were influenced by
spouses, parents or friends, who may themselves have been influenced by the publicity
campaign.
A further difficulty that cannot readily be resolved is the assessment of results. Though
in the case cited above a demand for vaccination was provoked by publicity and some
measure of its effect could be gauged, in many cases, such as in home safety campaigns,
no immediate effect is apparent to judge from relevant statistics. There is, however, an
indirect effect produced by such publicity by the Council in influencing the contents of
television programmes and popular magazines, which have a wider and more direct appeal
to the public.
Training of staff in health education—An account of in-service training of staff will be
found in the staff section of the main report.
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