A History of the Ministry of Information, 1939-46
I. INTRODUCTION
(1) Purpose of Inquiry
This inquiry was carried out with the purpose of discovering how the Ministry of Health’s statement about the venereal diseases, published in the national press and elsewhere, was received by the public.
The questionnaire (see page 22) was drawn up with three main objects in view:
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(a) To find the extent to which the statements had attracted attention; what proportions of the public had seen them and read them.
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(b) To find out the state of public knowledge about the venereal diseases; how many people knew or had any idea about what the diseases were, and of the way in which they are spread. Those who had read the statement were asked questions designed to show whether they had correctly understood the contents, and whether the most important facts, such as the symptoms, and what to do if infected, were known to them. In addition these people were asked whether they had known what they read in the advertisement previously or whether it was new to them.
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(c) To discover what public opinion was with regard to the V.D. publicity campaign. This campaign differs from most other campaigns for giving information to the public, in that it deals with a subject that has until recently been to some extent regarded as taboo. Notices put up in public lavatories have told people where they may obtain treatment, and there have been a few films on the subject, and a few books and pamphlets designed for people without medical knowledge. Apart from these forms of publicity, the subject of V.D. had scarcely been brought before the public at all, since advertisements for cures were made illegal, and therefore reactions to a widespread campaign on the subject launched by the Ministry of Health are of particular importance.
An attempt was made in this inquiry to measure the extent of approval and disapproval felt towards the idea of publicity, and to find out what proportion of the public agreed with publishing “a plain and frank statement of the facts” and to what extent “secrecy” was thought preferable.
In addition to this, opinions were sought as to the adequacy of the statement published in the newspapers; whether it was thought to be clear and easily understood, and whether any other advertising media, such as film or wireless would be preferred to newspaper publicity.
(2) The Sample
It was decided to include in the sample only people between the ages of fourteen and fifty, as it is mainly for this age group that the message of the statement is intended.
In considering the results given in this report it should be borne in mind that they refer only to people in this age group.
A total of 2459 persons was interviewed. These were selected in representative proportions from different regions and different broad occupation groups, the appropriate numbers of men and of women being included in each group. Details of the sample are given on page 24.
(3) Method of Approach and Reception of Questionnaire
The questions on venereal diseases were preceded in the questionnaire by a few questions on health and Ministry of Health publicity. The results of these questions are not given in this report. They served the purpose of establishing a relationship between the interviewer and the informant, before the more “difficult” subject of V.D. was broached.
Interviewers were instructed to pause at this point in the interview and give a short explanation, as follows:-
“The Ministry of Health are very worried about venereal diseases, or ‘V.D.’, and want to know how much people know about them.”
They then asked the first question about. V.D.: “Have you seen the Ministry of Health’s statement tolling people about the venereal diseases?” If the answer was “No”, the informant was shown a photostat copy of the statement.
By this time it was possible for the interviewer to have reached a decision as to whether the informant was willing to answer questions on V. D., or whether for the subject or embarrassment would make this too difficult. Interviewers were instructed to abandon the interview in cases where they felt it would be unwise to proceed, and to close the interview at this point. In fact, only 3% of all the interviews made were abandoned.
It should be noted that all investigators taking part in the inquiry were women. There was no statistically significant difference in the proportions of men and of women with whom interviews were abandoned.
In order to find out something about the way in which the inquiry was received by the public, a space was provided at the end of the questionnaire for the interviewer to record in a few words her impression of each informant’s attitude to the questions about V.D.
It is recognised that both the attitude of the informant and the interviewer’s assessment of that attitude depend to some extent on the interviewer’s own attitude and approach to the subject, and this should be borne in mind in considering the results below, which are given, for what they are worth, as impressions.
In the case of 14% of the sample no record was made of informants’ attitudes. The bulk of these omissions occurred on the forms of two investigators who misunderstood this instruction. There is no particular reason to suppose that the cases in which the attitude was not stated differ, in respect of the proportions showing different attitudes, from the rest of the sample.
An analysis of men’s and of women’s attitudes shows no statistically significant difference between the sexes.
Interviews were abandoned in the case of 8% of the young people aged under 20, and this age group showed less interest and rather more shyness than other groups. It is possible that this was due in some cases to complete absence of knowledge about V.D. or about sexual intercourse.
34% of all those contacted under 20 were classified as “very interested” as against 50% of the whole sample, and 18% as “somewhat shy or embarrassed at the subject” as against 11% of the whole sample.
Group showing particular interest were men who had been in the last war, of whom were classified as “very interested,” people who had children over the age of 14 away from home, of whom 60% were classified as “very interested”, and those in professional and managerial occupations of whom 68% were classified as “very interested”.
These groups are numerically small but calculation of the margin of error (which falls between 6 and 8%) show that the differences are statistically significant.
It will be seen from these figures that on the whole the inquiry seems to have been received well and with interest by the public. This is borne out by estimator’s comments in their general reports on the survey.