The role of the school in consumer health education.

Ethical consumer health education is education that is noncoercive and facilitates an individual's voluntary adoption of health improving behaviors. Patients and consumers attempting to utilize the medical marketplace for cure or prevention may be ill-prepared to do so because of the complexity of the marketplace, the strong marketing influences of the marketplace, and their own lack of fundamental preparation in the rudiments of decision-making, valuing, assertiveness, data collection, and other skills necessary to be a good consumer. For this reason, school-based consumer health education is necessary to prepare current and future consumers to safely and efficiently use the medical marketplace.