HEALTH PROMOTION WEEK IN ILLINOIS, Conceived by the Illinois Tuberculosis Association. BY WALTER D. THURBER, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY ILLINOIS EDITORIAL NOTE Popularizing public health is not an easy task because the average individual takes his health as a matter of form and too often looks upon disease as a divine visitation which he might as well try to dodge as a lightning bolt. Mr. Thurber's success in making through a Health Week campaign so dramatic an appeal to the people of Illinois is accordingly of great interest. The idea of the Health Week campaign as described in the accompanying article originated with Mr. Thurber and was promoted by him through the legislature and later organized on an extensive scale throughout the State. The campaign offers many suggestions to other state and local communities. Thousands of people in Illinois have been made to realize for the first time in their lives that the most commonplace thing in everyday existence is the most valuable. Further details regarding the campaign may be secured by correspondence with Mr. Thurber at the following address: 516 E. Monroe Street, Springfield, Illinois. The headline tells the story in tabloid as all real headlines should. There isn't very much more to say unless you are interested in the organization of a campaign which enlisted the active support of such groups as the State Federation of Labor, the State Press Association, the State Manufacturers' Association, the State Federation of Women's Clubs, the State Medical Society, the State Nurses' Association, the State Congress of Mothers, the State Society for the Prevention of Blindness, the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense and other organizations representing every phase of commercial, social, civic and public welfare development in a great progressive commonwealth. Or, you may be slightly curious about the methods employed in putting such a campaign -involving, as it did, work for scores of committees during each of the seven days-on the boards in a month's time. But your inquiry most likely will run like this: "What was the plan, anyway, and what did it produce in the way of results?" First of all, the idea was conceived in the offices of the Illinois Tuberculosis Association through a desire to arouse the entire public to the need for stronger measures against preventable disease. It is generally understood now-a-days that all well-balanced public health work tends to reduce the morbidity from tuberculosis and certainly that all tuberculosis work helps to reduce the prevalence of all communicable as well as many other diseases. The thing that was lacking was popularity, that is, public interest. Of course, the child welfare organizations were interested in their work, and it goes without saying that the tuberculosis associations were busy with a constructive program; the state and local health authorities were busy; the social hygiene groups were active, and so on down the list. There was also an appreciably growing increase in the amount of public interest in all health projects but that interest was not increasing as fast as it should nor was it manifested in the quarters where one would naturally look for it. Proof of this lack of interest developed every time a public meeting on health subjects was held. Those who attended usually were already interested in the subject and often the audiences at such meetings were made up entirely of the small group which had arranged the program! Health exhibits, unless held in connection with a fair, a chautauqua, or a convention of some sort are poorly attended except when the children of the public schools are sent to the exhibit by classes in charge of the teachers. This condition is not peculiar to Illinois. It is universal. But every so often the old order changeth-and Illinois was ripe for something new. Here Not that the idea was entirely new. and there in the country something of the sort had been attempted before. Indiana has its Disease Prevention Day on the first Friday in October of each year; Minneapolis had a Health and Happiness Week; the entire country has been for years observing certain special days, such as Tuberculosis Sunday, Better Babies' Day, Swat the Fly Day, and others. In Health Promotion Week, however, Illinois found an idea around which every extra-governmental public health and social welfare agency, every State and local health officer, every commercial, social and civic organization could build a broad and a far-reaching program of constructive work. Here is the outline of the week's activities which, when presented to leaders in the Legislature, caused that body to pass a resolution endorsing it, in record-breaking time: Sunday, May 11-Health Promotion Sunday: Health talks by ministers and laymen in churches and Sunday-schools. Monday, May 12-Community Clean-up Day: General clean-up of back yards, alleys, streets, store basements, railroad yards, barns, out-houses, chicken coops, etc. Opening of fly and rat-catching contests. Opening of contests for best and most appropriate window displays in retail stores. Beginning of physical examination of children. Tuesday, May 13-Swat the Fly Day: Special campaigns against breeding places of flies and mosquitoes. Oiling of dusty roads. Community beautification through planting of flowers, trees and shrubbery; clearing off vacant property; whitewashing outbuildings, Contest in composition writing for local and state prizes on the topic, "Ten Preventable Diseases and What We Must Do to Prevent Them." Saturday, May 17-Pageant Day: Health parades with floats descriptive of the many ways in which diseases can be prevented. Field Day exercises by school children, Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A. and other groups. Mass Meetings with programs made up of musical and dramatic numbers, moving-picture reels and a health talk. Awarding of prizes in the various contests. It was a pretty large order. In fact, it was so big and the time for putting it on the boards was so short that more than one solemnly shook their heads and declared that it couldn't be put across. Further, wasn't it public health stuff and hadn't we learned long ago that the people were coldly indifferent to health and anything pertaining thereto? Oh, yes, we knew the time was short, and we knew all about the well-known attitude of the general public toward previous health campaigns, and we recalled that the churches hadn't very generally observed Health Sunday- but we were ready to begin shooting and we advised the knockers to step aside or they might get powder-burned. The mere mechanics of the next move, the setting up of a campaign force of thirty stenographers in the principal corridor of the State House because that was the only room there was, the temporary absorption of the machinery of every available circular letter concern, the organization of a staff of twelve field workers from the State Department of Public Health, the Illinois Tuberculosis Association, and the State Department of Labor, the breaking of all records in getting out special campaign material through the enthusiastic cooperation of the State Department of Printing these details probably would mean little to the readers of THE JOURNAL OF THE OUTDOOR LIFE. You might have been interested, though, had you attended the first meeting of the field staff when they were given their traveling schedules. Illinois has 102 counties and many of them have several important cities that we wanted to have covered by a field worker whose visit would be properly timed with the arrival of letters calling a local meeting for the organization of a Health Promotion Week committee. "Cover two counties a day! Impossible!" "Nobody could keep a schedule like this." "Expect me to make three conferences in twelve hours, every conference in a different city? Why, it would take me all day to convince six people that Health Promotion Week is a good thing!" These were a few of the comments that came bursting across the table as the veterans of many a campaign glanced at their traveling schedules. We found, as we expected we would find, that we had to sell the idea to the field staff before they moved a peg. They bought-in wholesale lots. Every city and town on the long list was covered in the time set! The "impossible schedules" had been followed. Steamboats, trains, autos, horses and other means of transportation were used. The correspondence schedule began with letters to their local contacts from the various state organizations included in the State committee. These first letters were merely to the effect that Health Promotion Week had been fixed by the legislature, that the lives, the health and the happiness of every member of the community depended upon the support given to this far-reaching movement for the prevention of disease, that the State Department of health would call upon them to help and to get ready for the call when it came. The "call" followed right on the heels of the first letter and was accompanied by a copy of the campaign handbook. The mayor of A tuberculosis nurse helping in the "Community Clean-up Campaign" by working with a careless housekeeper to remove the rubbish from a dirty backyard. every city, town and village was asked to arrange a local conference for the organization of a committee within a specified time. The leaders of each community were advised that such a request had been made of the mayor and each person written by the Department was supplied with a type-written list of all others in his community who had been likewise addressed. Our "master list" for this campaign was composed of more than 10,000 men and women, known for their activity in connection with the tuberculosis movement, the Red Cross, the schools of the community, the medical society, the local commercial club, labor unions, merchants' association, parentteacher association, nurses' association, the Council of Defense, or other community activity. Coincident with the call for the initial meeting we arranged for an early conference with a member of the field staff to tie up the interest thus begun into a concrete organization with the proper spirit of push. A rapid fire of newspaper publicity was maintained through the splendid support of all the papers in the State which had previously been urged to "go the limit" by the president and secretary of the State Press Association. Within two weeks we had organized local general committees with ten or more subcommittees in 182 cities and towns. The total number of workers engaged exceeded 20,000. In more than 20 cities the local chamber of commerce or commercial club took over the entire responsibility for the success of the project. In many other instances the president or the secretary of the local commercial club was the general Health Promotion Week chairman with a large part of his working personnel recruited from the business interests of the community. Practically every local tuberculosis society and committee in Illinois played an active and a prominent part in the observance of Health Promotion Week. Here are a few instances: In Champaign and Urbana, the secretary of the county tuberculosis association had charge of the health centers which were featured by the local committee. More than 2,500 school children were weighed and measured under the supervision of the tuberculosis, school and child welfare nurses. Children from the various schools were taken to see the educational exhibits which were a feature of the health centers and prizes were given those who wrote the best and most interesting accounts of what they witnessed. Demonstraions in child feeding, school lunches, etc., were given at both centers by demonstrators from the State University. Thousands of pieces of helpful health literature were distributed and the health exhibits were pronounced the best ever shown in either city. Material for the exhibits was gathered from the State Department of Public Health, the Children's Bureau at Washington, the Child Welfare organization of New York City, the Illinois Tuberculosis Association and the Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund. In Kankakee the tuberculosis league and the woman's club gave the entire city an example of what can be accomplished by the use of a little elbow grease, mixed with common sense and an eye for the beautiful. A vacant lot near the center of town had long been an eyesore. Rubbish of all sorts, tin cans which furnished an ideal breeding-place for mosquitoes, etc., had been thrown on the lot until it had become unsightly. A group of tuberculosis workers raked up the rubbish, had it Illinois Tuberculosis Association float passing the reviewing stand at the Lincoln Monument, Springfield. The float of the Springfield Tuberculosis Association is seen at the left of the picture. The home of "The Great Emancipator" was one of the most active cities in the State in the fight to emancipate itself from the thraldom of communicable disease. hauled away and in its place sowed grass seed and planted attractive shrubbery, thus converting the one-time dumping-ground into a small city park. At one end of the park they built a brick oven from the bricks collected on the lot. This will be used by the Boy Scouts. Merchants of the city set up many attractive window displays; groups of workers covered the city to eliminate breeding places for flies; active support was given by commercial clubs, the newspapers, the churches, schools and other civic agencies. The Morgan County Tuberculosis League was one of the prime movers in the Health Promotion Week activities in Jacksonville. A "health center" was established and exhibits as well as moving pictures on health subjects were shown in it every day to large audiences. School children were invited to prepare Health Promotion Week posters with the result that an astonishing array of educational material was developed. On the night of the community bon-fire a number of members of the league were waiting in the health center for the arrival of the drum corps which was to furnish music on the occasion. In addition to the pile of rubbish and other material to be burned were a number of old mattresses. Suddenly an excited urchin stuck his head in at the door and shouted-"Say, Missus, you'd better hurry. Folks are stealing your bon fire." Encouraged by the delay and spurred perhaps by personal needs, some of the spectators had tried to get away with the germladen and cast-off bedding. Jacksonville Modern Health Crusaders were active in all the phases of the week's program and presented a striking appearance in the health parade. In Monticello the Piatt County Tuberculosis Association arranged for the appearance of a larger number of Crusaders from the city and county districts in the health parade than the entire population of the town. Every reader of every newspaper in Woodford County was given a copy of the consumption circular issued by the State Department of Public Health, through the efforts of the county tuberculosis league. The Illinois Tuberculosis Association entered one of the most striking floats in the Health Promotion Week parade in Springfield. On an eighteen-foot float was portrayed two of the Association's principal activities-medical and nursing service. To illustrate the medical work, a doctor and nurse were shown at work with a soldier and a sailor, each in uniform. The nursing service was illustrated by a nurse in the home of a patient-mother in bed and two small youngsters near by. A tent on which small, crisp sentences told of the work of the Association and its affiliated societies took up the center of SCHOOL CHILDREN MARCHING IN A HEALTH PROMOTION WEEK PARADE IN ILLINOIS. Ten the float, while over all was a large banner with the name of the Association and the inscription, "Education-Medical and Nursing Service Sanatorium Care - Prevention." Modern Health Crusaders in glittering armor of breast-plates, helmets, shields bearing the double-barred red cross, and shining lancesformed the escort for the float, five on each side. Each Crusader was mounted on a Shetland pony. The float was drawn by four beautiful black horses in white harness and was preceded by two mounted heralds, in white except for flowing red capes. These carried banners with the inscription "Illinois Tuberculosis Association," attached to golden trumpets and were preceded by a mounted bugler in Boy Scout uniform. All of the work on the float, except for the painting of the signs, was done by the staff of the Association, which put in many enjoyable evenings in what they called the "armory," in which the coats of mail for the Crusaders, the uniform for the heralds, etc., were made. The net result of the work of the 182 local committees may be briefly covered as follows: 6,000,000 persons interested in health promotion and disease prevention through the daily papers, health exhibits, health talks in churches and by three-minute speakers in theaters. 50,000 wagon loads of tin cans, and other rubbish, removed from back yards and alleys. 500,000 school children given a new interest in health by means of health playlets, health |