Abstract
To clarify the effects of municipal health education and consultation, and the cause of such effects, we distributed a questionnaire targeting public health nurses in 3, 255 municipalities nationwide. Valid responses were received from 2, 884 municipalities, excluding special wards, cities under government ordinance, and core cities. Health education and consultation was evaluated as effective in “progress in the health of citizens” and as being “improved in medical examination”, but evaluated as not so useful in “decreasing incidence rate and prevalence rate” and in “reducing medical costs”. Problems to be overcome in health education and consultation, include “difficulty in judging effect”, “failure of intended targets to show up”, “difficulty in specialist job retention”, and “lack of appropriate skills”. The development and study of evaluation methods and cooperation with other organizations, retention of personnel with appropriate skills, securing targets, and improvement understanding by citizens, personal with are thus important in practicing effective health education and consultation.
