Health education in medical group practices: promoting health or business?

This article attempts to explain differences in the health education activities of medical group practices. Potential explanatory factors examined include: providing prepaid care, group ownership, group size, and specialty composition and mechanism for making group policy. The data used in this analysis were collected by the American Medical Association through the 1986 National Survey of Medical Groups. Results indicate that the conduct of a variety of health education activities was determined primarily by the group's policy mechanism. That groups with more formal policy mechanisms are more likely to conduct health education activities suggests that the provision of health education is a business decision rather than a medical one. Some implications for health educators of the use of health education to promote a practice are discussed.