Entertainment Education for Better Health

For over 30 years entertainment-education (E-E) has been a tool for changing health behavior

E-E uses drama, music, or other communication formats that engage the emotions to inform audiences and change attitudes, behavior, and social norms. Worldwide, several hundred major projects have used E-E to improve health.

Entertainment-education has encouraged people to live healthier lives.

E-E projects for family planning and reproductive health have helped motivate people to use contraception, to prevent HIV infection by having fewer sex partners, and to use antenatal care services.

Entertainment-education dramas can persuade because they show characters that change their behavior to improve their lives.

Stories have unique power and nuance to describe people’s behavior and interactions, and their consequences. When audience members see that they could be in the same situation as the characters, stories can move them to change, too. E-E is particularly able to influence behavior rooted in traditions that are hard to change.

Theories of human behavior and behavior change underlie E-E.

For example, social learning theory emphasizes how people learn by observing others. Thus the theory supports the use of dramas with characters who model healthy behavior.

Why Use Entertainment-Education?

Entertainment-education has a long history. For thousands of years, entertaining stories have passed on wisdom and values from generation to generation. Modern E-E dates from the 1940s and 1950s, when radio dramas both informed and entertained farmers and their families: The Lawsons in Australia and The Archersin the United King-dom motivated people to adopt agricultural innovations (96). To improve public health, E-E has encouraged people to exercise, eat more fruits and vegetables, and stop smoking (15,20, 37), as well as to adopt family planning and avoid HIV infection. Miguel Sabido developed one of the first dramas with a family planning theme (see p. 4).

E-E uses various forms of entertainment. Dramas on radio and TV, animated cartoons, popular songs, street theater, and other formats can educate and motivate as they e-tertian (96).In E-E there is no clear dividing line between entertainment and education (26). The two should be seamlessly woven together.

How Can Entertainment-Education Influence Behavior?

Since the 1970s there have been several hundred major entertainment-education (E-E) projects to improve health. Most have been TV and radio dramas in developing countries (96). Among the earliest with a family planning theme were the TV serial drama Acompañame (Come Along With Me), broadcast in Mexico in 1977 and 1978, and the radio drama Grains of Sand in the Sea, which began in 1977 in Indonesia and continues today (5, 94, 96).

The Advantages of Entertainment-Education:

The Nine Ps

Pervasive: Entertainment is everywhere.

Popular: People like entertainment.

Personal: Audiences identify with the characters.

Participatory: Audiences have a role in the development of E-E and respond to E-E programs.

Passionate: E-E appeals to emotions.

Persuasive: Audience members imitate the role models in

E-E programs.

Practical: Media already exist, and performers want to participate in interesting programs.

Profitable: E-E attracts sponsors and can advance the career of producers, writers, and performers

Proven effective: E-E can increase knowledge, change attitudes, and move people to action (75).