Designing a Successful Health Fair to Promote Individual, Family, and Community Health

Abstract

A health fair is a community health strategy used to meet community members' needs for health promotion, education, and prevention. In this article we focus on the importance of partnerships in designing a health fair; essential components; and steps in planning, implementing, and evaluating a health fair. The Healthy People 2000 framework can be used to guide the development of objectives and content for a health fair. We present a list of topics for exhibits and a Health Fair Evaluation Questionnaire used to measure outcomes of a health fair on participants' health beliefs and practices. Implications for nursing practice, education, and research include increasing nurses' awareness of community problems, health beliefs, and practices; networking opportunities that provide knowledge of new resources; service learning experiences for students; and opportunities for research on how health fairs meet health care needs and promote changes in health knowledge, beliefs, and practices.