The role of school health education in preventing heart, lung, and blood diseases.

The scope and dynamics of heart, lung, and blood diseases in the United States are reviewed and the need for research about the primary prevention of these conditions among large populations of children and youth is explained. Ways in which school health education could contribute to the primary prevention of these diseases are delineated; risk factors and social issues that might be addressed by the nation's schools are identified. A brief review of educational efforts to discourage adolescent cigarette smoking during the last 30 years illustrates some of the problems and opportunities presented by school health education research.