Direct mailing as a means of disseminating NIH consensus statements. A comparison with current techniques.

The Office of Medical Applications of Research of the National Institutes of Health conducted a survey to evaluate the effectiveness of mass mailing of consensus statements as compared with traditional dissemination methods. The consensus statement on osteoporosis, published earlier in JAMA, was selected for study. Physicians (N = 695) within each of five relevant specialties in two comparable metropolitan areas were surveyed. Findings suggest that while a small but significant increase of awareness resulted from direct mailing, this increase should be weighed against costs and effectiveness of other methods.