ABSTRACT
Tremendous benefits can be realized by adopting an anthropological perspective and using social science research techniques during the different phases of a primary health care program. Some agencies have become disillusioned with anthropological research, viewing it as ethnographic research that requires an extensive time commitment and is too comprehensive to allow salient features to emerge that could easily be applied to program design. The challenge in designing the media strategy became how to deliver an audience-specific messages to each audience. A nutrition education pilot project in Indonesia demonstrated that when the intended beneficiaries are consulted using methods that emanate from anthropology, they themselves can make a major positive contribution to educational messages and strategies. The tendency is for nutrition educators to continue to teach what they themselves were taught rather than to meld scientific principles with local perceptions and practices.
