Adapting the Windshield Survey Model to Community Health Education

Originally developed to locate environmental conditions conducive to the incubation and spread of communicable disease, the windshield survey technique (1) was successfully adapted for employment by aides in a health education project designed to persuade more women in target populations to have Papanicolaou smear tests annually (2). The Health Education Aide Trainee (HEAT) projeet was conducted in three major California neighborhoods: the Western Addition area of San Francisco (an inner city, predominately black ghetto), sections of Oakland (Fruitvale and East Oakland) with mixed ethnic populations (American Indian, Spanish speaking, oriental, and black), and a rural section of southern Alameda County. The target population in rural Alameda County was primarily Spanish speaking. The Alameda County residents usually had only seasonal employment, primarily in agriculture, either in the fields or in the canning and packing sheds. Employment opportunities in the urban communities were varied. Technique