A health education intervention study on infographic use in public health.

This research aims to determine the knowledge of residents in public health medicine on the use of the infographics and other visual tools used in the field of public health and whether an educational intervention is able to improve their competency in infographic design; while evaluating whether an infographic was more effective in communicating health information than text-based methods among people who present to a primary care center. The first study was carried out with 192 residents in public health medicine. 27 people chosen from volunteers, participated in the training intervention to increase competence in creating an infographic. The level of those who defined themselves as competent or highly competent in infographics increased from 11.1% to 77.7% (p <0.001) and 92.5% of the infographics were scored above the acceptable level. The second study was conducted on 160 women between 40-69 years of age who applied to Sincan Healthy Life Center. In order to increase their knowledge points, 79 people received an infographic and 81 received a text about the same subject. At the end of the intervention, knowledge score increased in both groups (p <0.001). The increase in knowledge score was higher in the infographically-treated group (p <0.001). While educational status did not effect the increase in test scores in the infographic group (p = 0.212), high school graduates had a higher increase in the test scores then primary school graduates in the text group (p = 0.038). As a result, it was found that the infographic was more effective than text-based information source on recall of health information. Public health professionals can use infographics for community education after proper training. However, more research on the effects of infographics on perception and behavior change should be conducted.