Our 40286 ~

June 5, 1974

Dr. Anne R, Somers
Director
Office of Consumer Health Ed

College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
Rutgers Medical School

P.O. Box 101

Piscataway, New Jersey 08854

 

Dear Dr. Somers,

I have enjoyed reading your article in American Medical News for
May 27th, as I have also admired your other writings. Your theme on the
cost effectiveness of educating the consumer is one that I agree with
and have stressed in my own teaching. However, I wonder if it is possible
to give any empirical validation for the effectiveness of health
education. I realize that you are yourself in a study concerned with the
same end but perhaps you have collected some cogent literature that
might be helpful to me in my teaching.

Much as I support a high priority for public health education,
I wonder if you would really mean, as more than a metaphore, your
comparison of a few million dollars versus billions as a measure of
the relative utility of these inputs. (One can, of course, always
point to a situation where the kingdom was lost for want of a nail).
Then the setting of your article was perhaps not intended to evoke
quite so precise a reading. But the one purpose of my writing to you
is to ask for the present state of understanding of the economic pay~
off of investment in health education. (I am particularly concerned that
this subject has progressively deteriorated as a part of the curriculum
in grade and secondary school education. But do not ask me to verify
that intuition quantitatively!)

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr

 

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