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106
at any given time there should be some forty posters on view in the
Borough. The topics each month commencing in February were as
follows:—
February — Home Safety — Use of Fireguards.
March — Dental Health.
April — Help for the Elderly.
May — Home Safety — Encouraging the use of Adequate
lighting in the Home.
June — Guarding against infection from Dustbins.
July — Personal Hygiene.
August — Personal Hygiene.
September — Immunisation and Vaccination against Infectious
Diseases.
October — Home Safety — Dangers of Fireworks.
November - Smoking and Health.
December — Infectious Diseases — Spreading of cold germs.
Supporting printed leaflets (where available) were offered in
the clinics for the public to take away.
In June a circular letter was sent to 98 general practitioners
in the Borough offering regular free supplies of leaflets and small
(folio size) posters for display in Surgeries. This offer was taken
up by 21 general practitioners and material is dispatched to them at
monthly intervals. In September a similar circular letter was sent to
32 chemists in the Borough and 6 also accepted the offer. As
mentioned in the annual report for 1962, it is felt that doctors surgeries
and chemists premises are particularly useful for the
dissemination of health education material and it is hoped that
these two avenues will be expanded in the future.
At the moment it is felt that further use of commercial sites
for the display of posters is not justified, and that free sites are
being adequately used.
A start has been made in sending regular supplies of leaflets
to Medical Officers engaged in routine medical examinations in
schools. The intention is that each child examined should be given
a leaflet to take away from the medical inspection; subjects of
obvious topical interest are smoking, child care and personal hygiene.
Whenever posters and leaflets are used, there is an inevitable
doubt as to whether these media are effective in influencing the
public in any way. A number of studies have been done to try to