No abstract

The Guide to Clinical Preventive Services, prepared in 1989 by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, assesses the effectiveness of 169 types of preventive interventions. In 1990, the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine formed a panel to review the guide and recommend ways it could be used to enhance both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. This paper outlines the panel's recommendations of the types of knowledge and attitudes on which postgraduate medical education in prevention should be built. Detailed recommendations are presented, based on the summary findings of the guide, for residency education in prevention. Implementation of these recommendations will integrate preventive services into the continuum of medical care. These recommendations are presented to achieve the goal of educating physicians to approach the total patient, putting the patient's health rather than the disease process in the forefront of primary medical care.

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Demographic variables, maternal attitudes, knowledge, practices, and support systems were studied in a sample of 50 low-income mothers from one area to assess the basis for the low incidence of breastfeeding in this group. Attitudes were compared with those of a previous study of middle-class women. These women of low income emphasized the homemaking role, favored earlier motor and emotional development of the child, and had a more favorable attitude toward breastfeeding. Being unmarried and living with parents or other relatives proved to be an impediment to breastfeeding. More education, encouragement, and support from medical personnel are needed to increase the rate of breastfeeding in such a low-income population.