Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Abstract

One of the major challenges facing those who wish to inspire better health and safety in the occupational word is MOTIVATION. It is one thing to be able to provide people with necessary and important information on health needs; it is quite another to be able to motivate or encourage people to adopt the necessary health behaviors. One of the very successful ways to bring together knowledge and behavior change is through Entertainment Education; that is using an entertaining format to deliver the knowledge. Television (or radio) drama serials attract and hold the attention of the audience through their �entertainment� while they carefully introduce (as the drama develops over several months) important health messages for the audience to learn about, think about and then adopt as a part of their everyday life. Entertainment Education dramas have been used with great success in many countries of the world. A recent study from the Norman Lear Center at the University of South California (USC) proves that an appropriate movie can have great power in motivating people to change their behavior and adopt healthier living styles. Successful Entertainment Education, however, requires a close working partnership with researchers, knowledge experts, dramatists and audience members, all of whom must initially come together for a Design Workshop to put together the Design Document which guides the writers and producers to know exactly what �education� must be provided to the audience and how it must be provided naturally, gradually and believably throughout the entertaining story

Biography

Esta de Fossard has experienced more than 20 years of hands-on work in the field of Entertainment Education, working in over 50 countries. She is the writer of the three leading (only) text books on Entertainment-Education (published by Sage Publications) and she currently teaches Entertainment Education and Intercultural Communication at Johns Hopkins Zanvyl Krieger School of Advanced Communication in Washington DC. In 2011 she was the winner of the USC Everett Rogers Award for Outstanding contributions in the field of Entertainment Education.