Qualifications work like a vaccination against ill health, writes JACKY JONES.
Irish people are great for reinventing the wheel but are slow to attach the wheels to the vehicle to ensure it reaches its destination. I’m referring to our reluctance to apply best practice and evidence to health education programmes and the promotion of health. A report this month from the Health Research Board on alcohol-related deaths notes there is no evidence “that school-based education and information programmes reduce alcohol-related harm”.
Well yes, that has been widely known since the early 1970s. I attended an Education Against Addiction conference in Killarney in 1979 where those exact facts were presented to hundreds of people from the Irish health and education sectors. In 1989, the King’s Fund (London) summarised the international evidence on education for health and concluded that many agencies reinvent the wheel and use health education strategies that are ineffective or even counterproductive, including topic-centred school-based programmes on sex, drugs and alcohol.
Source: Jacky Jones, Irish Times, 26/07/2011
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