Parents' knowledge of respiratory disease: A comparison of inner-city and suburban parents

The difference in knowledge of common diseases between inner-city parents and suburban parents may be even greater than generally thought. Measuring this difference should serve to emphasize the general neglect of the subject of parent (or patient) education in medical schools, residency programs, and in pediatric texts and journals. The present study of parents' knowledge of respiratory disease shows that inner-city parents scored 20 points lower than suburban parents (67% vs. 87%). In the inner-city group Spanish-American parents scored 11 points lower than non-Spanish-American parents (61% vs. 72%). Thus, the urgent need for better health education, especially in the inner city, is emphasized. Several basic reviews of articles on health education show clearly that this subject is very complex and poorly understood by many investigators. Adequate controls are hard to establish, and long-term benefits are hard to prove. Hospitals are reluctant to spend additional funds on health education unless a convincing cost-benefit relationship can be shown. However, the costs of ignoring the problems of health education are probably much greater than the costs of conducting a well-organized program.