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42
SECTION IV.
HEALTH PROPAGANDA.
Apart from the normal health education work of the Council's visiting and
clinic staffs, the activities of the Council in health education and health propaganda
during 1938 may be classified as follows:—
(a) National Health Campaign.—In last year's Annual Report, I set out
fully the steps taken by the Council to assist this national effort to increase the
use of the Health Services. The campaign was a wide one, and included appeals
not only to use the health services of local authorities—maternity and child welfare,
school medical, tuberculosis, and social hygiene—but also to use the general
practitioner medical services, and the hospitals, sufficiently early to enable the
best results to be obtained. In the closing month the campaign was closely
associated with the work of the National Fitness Council.
The campaign extended over part of two calendar years. The first two
sections dealing with health services generally and with maternity and child welfare
services in particular, occupied the winter months of 1937. In the spring of 1938
flie remaining services were dealt with.
The propaganda material used included: a series of large posters measuring
80 inches by 120 inches for display on hoardings; double crown posters for display
in windows and on notice boards; classroom posters; display showcards for
counters, etc.; traffic notices; bookmarks; and three-leaf folders, all bearing
similar information and the same slogan for each section of the Campaign.
In Woolwich arrangements were made for display on hoardings of the large
posters; the double crown posters and the classroom posters were distributed
widely to the churches, clubs, guilds, employers and to the various departments
of the Council. The show-cards were distributed to small shopkeepers; the bookmarks
were distributed through the Libraries, and 30,000 of the three-leaf folders,
with local information overprinted, were distributed house-to-house throughout
the Borough each month.
. (b) Health Film Displays for School Children.—Experience having
demonstrated the value of the cinema film as a medium for the education of school
children (particularly so with the introduction of the sound film) arrangements
for monthly displays at the Town Hall and at the Plumstead Museum were continued
during 1938 in co-operation with the Libraries Committee. On one Monday
in each of the winter months, three separate audiences, each of approximately
400, saw a programme of educational and health films of about one hour's duration
at the Town Hall; and at Plumstead Museum on one Wednesday in each of the
winter months a display was given to a small audience during the afternoon and
again in the evening to an audience of approximately two hundred.