Pamphlets by Journeyworks. Disasters and Emergencies: STDs: Understanding Your Risk; Ten Good Reasons to Use a Condom; Birth Control: Ten Things a Man Can Do; Teens, Sex and Birth Control; Date and Acquaintance Rape: What Everyone Needs to Know; The Health Consequences of Smoking; 50 Ways to Resist the Urge to Smoke; Beyond Willpower: Tools to Help You Quit Smoking; How to Quit Smoking When You've Tried Before; Quit Smoking For One Day [horizontal ellipsis] For Good; Women and Smoking: Ten Great Reasons to Quit; 50 Things You Should Know to be Better Prepared; Talking About War, Terrorism and Disaster: Helping Children Cope; Internet Safety For Young People; (3 sets of pamphlets; some also available in Spanish.) Santa Cruz, Calif: Journeyworks Publishing. Prices start at $18 for 50 pamphlets.
These sets of Journeyworks pamphlets are an up-to-date, practical way to present health-related material. These pamphlets are useful as a brief introduction to critical health-related topics. Journeyworks organizes the above pamphlets under the topics sexual health, tobacco prevention and cessation, and safe and healthy families. The target audience is teens and adults outside the healthcare professions. Each pamphlet clearly indicates the intended audience either through the illustrations or the title. An example of one such title is For Parents & Other Caregivers. Talking About War, Terrorism and Disaster. The pamphlets are designed in a standard trifold format on nonglossy, recycled paper. The art is simple but attractive with full color illustrations representing diverse races.
The content is current, significant, and relevant. Some of the pamphlets present quite a bit of text, but it is broken up with art, bullets, and lists. This formatting makes it easier to read and digest. The writing is direct and avoids jargon and complex medical terms. When a medical term is used, it is defined, for example, emphysema (a serious lung disease). There are no complicated graphs or charts in the pamphlets and because the art work is done in a personable style, it makes these serious topics accessible to a broad audience.
Journeyworks provides pamphlets that seek to reach a variety of people with differing needs. The sexual safety and smoking cessation sets of pamphlets cover several aspects of the given topic. In the smoking cessation group, for instance, one pamphlet offers suggestions on how to quit when you have tried before. These suggestions focus on behavioral and lifestyle changes. Another pamphlet titled Beyond Willpower describes tools such as nicotine patches, acupuncture, and classes to help. The sexual safety set of pamphlets addresses different needs by acknowledging varying sexual practices, for example, "You can become infected with an STD if you have vaginal, anal or oral sex with an infected partner." These pamphlets present sensitive information in a no-nonsense style and offer hotline numbers on the back. The set of pamphlets focusing on safe and healthy families offers some good practical advice. In the Internet safety pamphlets for example, teens are encouraged to help their parents learn to use the Internet if they do not know how. Parents are reminded to respect the privacy of their teens.
Overall, I would highly recommend these Journeyworks pamphlets for people wanting information on these topics. They will capture the reader' attention and many will come away wanting to seek more detailed information from other sources. Journeyworks does offer additional resource information on the back of each pamphlet. Although limited, it provides a good place to start. There are some minor problems with clarity and grammar in a couple of pamphlets. In STDs; Understanding Your Risk, the authors use "themselves" when referring to a single subject. In addition, the first reference in the pamphlet Birth Control: Ten Things a Man Can Do states "Don't have sex without it." If the reader has not read the script across the top of the pamphlet first, it could be unclear what "it" is. These few problems, while mildly distracting, are limited and do not diminish the overall effectiveness of these pamphlets. Journeyworks Publishing offers review copies of their literature. Call their toll free number 1-800-775-1998 for complimentary pamphlets.
Edie Devers, PhD, RN
Assistant Professor, University of Virginia School of Nursing, Charlottesville, Va