Why Should You Have a Health Fair?

There are many reasons to have a health fair in your community, school or workplace. Following are just a few objectives that some communities throughout the state have used:

1. Introduce the practice of healthy behaviors; include demonstrations on exercise, healthy eating, stress management, and other topics of current interest.
2. Stimulate or reinforce healthy behaviors.
3. Bring together providers and health care consumers.  Make the providers aware of the community needs, and make the consumers aware of area health services.
4. Distribute health information.  This could include pamphlets from various agencies or services and perhaps even a directory of local area health services.
5. Offer some direct health service such as an immunization clinic and special testing.
6. Detect some unsuspected disease in a large community.  This could be accomplished by some kind of screening procedure, i.e., Hepatitis B or Diabetes screening.
7. Encourage or promote community health organization.  Perhaps the health fair could evolve into some kind of permanent health council if one does not already exist.
8. Acquaint young people with career opportunities in the health field.

How do I organize a Health Fair in my Community, School or Workplace?

If you would like to have a health fair in your community, school, or workplace, please contact the regional office in your area.  We would be delighted to help you through the process of organizing a health fair.  AHF, Inc. will provide you with many of the materials necessary for a successful fair. 

In addition to providing the necessary equipment and health education materials, we also provide annual two-day training sessions in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau.  Sessions are designed to prepare fair organizers for presentation of a successful fair.  For more information about these sessions, please contact any regional office.