Communication really is key. A study about high blood pressure shows that health communication (read education), once tailored to the audience, really works! It just so happens that I helped with this study in the design and execution. Please follow this link to the New York Times article about the study. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/health/views/10chen.html If you are interested in the original paper published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, you can follow this link http://www.annals.org/content/154/2/77/suppl/DC1
This study compared health education that is not tailored, and the patients don't respond. However, when you target the message to the audience, that is when the results occur! I believe the same is true with parental communication from our schools. IF we target the message so that it is framed in terms that the parent is both interested in and is appropriate to them specifically, then we can get greater parental involvement. I am not delusional, and do realize that not every parent in both willing and able to actively participate in school activities. However, we know from this study and others that targeting our message really works.
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