Healthy Start grantees offered health education and training through primary, secondary, and tertiary health promotion messages. Primary health promotion messages included education on increasing folic acid consumption to reduce occurrence of neural tube defects and placing infants on their backs to sleep to reduce risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Secondary messages included early detection and treatment of diseases such as HIV and STDs. Tertiary health promotion approaches might, for example, reduce stress in order to help reduce disability or suffering caused by chronic conditions.

Recognizing that multiple factors influence health behavior and health outcomes, Healthy Start grantees provided health education and training to a variety of individuals. All Healthy Start grantees (100 percent) provided health education to clients and 83 percent provided education to the general population. Most grantees (92 percent) conducted health education training for their staff, 86 percent trained their consortium members, and 71 percent provided health education training for providers in the community.

Client health education covered a very broad range of topics, reflecting the wide-ranging needs of the population. Of the 19 topics included in the survey, 76 percent of projects provided health education to clients on all 19 topics, and another 18 percent covered all but one topic. On average, projects provided client education on 18.6 topics. Ninety-nine percent of grantees provided education to clients on drug abuse, alcohol abuse, depression, family planning, and domestic violence. Less common client health education topics were stress management (93 percent), exercise (87 percent), and management of chronic conditions (86 percent).

Some health education messages were targeted at the general population. The most common population-based health education topics were smoking cessation (61 percent of grantees), depression (57 percent), SIDS prevention (56 percent), and STD prevention, testing, and treatment (56 percent).