Session 5:

Health Education Principles and

Strategies
Prof. Flora Kessy
CMT 05105 Health Promotion
23rd November 2017

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 Learning Objectives
• By the end of this session, students are expected to be
able to:
– Describe the basic concepts and principles of health education
– Explain the characteristics of effective health education
– Explain the roles and purpose of health education
– Describe the strategies for health education
– Describe the role of health care providers as health educators
– Identify appropriate media for communicating health
– Describe how to develop Information, Education and
Communication (IEC) messages

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 Health Education: What is it?
• The process by which people learn about their
health and more specifically, how to improve
their health.
• Provides learning process and communication
designed to improve health literacy conducive
to individual and community health:
– Improving knowledge
– Developing life skills

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 Concepts of Health Education (1/3)
• Physicians are responsible to educate people about
their health as well as to treat them:
– Educate people about immunization, nutrition, family
planning, and environmental sanitation.
– Bridge the social gap created by the difference between
technical priorities and what is really possible for people to
achieve.
• The goal of health education is to change behaviour
by changing attitudes.
– Health education encourages self-reliance and motivates
people to make their own health related decisions.

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 Concepts of Health Education (2/3)
• Health education process:
– Sender of message
– Channel through which the message is sent
– Receivers
– Effects.
• Participatory methods are effective in changing behaviour
and include group analysis of a situation, group dialogue,
persuasion, and educational games.
• An effective strategy e.g. for individual instruction is
woman-to-woman or child-to-child communication, which
depends upon the identification of key women and children.

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 Concepts of Health Education (3/3)
• Development of a community-based health education
strategy relies on community participation and the
involvement of influential members of the community
• After a message has been transmitted, innovators will
begin the new practice, early adopters will follow,
and slow adopters (laggards) will wait and watch.
• The innovators and early adopters can help reduce
resistance to the innovation.
– While it is a slow process, health education can improve
attitudes and behaviour.

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 Principles of Health Education (1/3)

• Know what to change

• Decide what the key problems are
• Know your audience
– Attempts to introduce new practices may fail if they
are incompatible with local beliefs and practices.
– Changes advocated by health educators who are
based centrally may be unrealistic locally, so a
comprehensive strategy of health education both
locally and nationally is necessary.

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 Principles of Health Education (2/3)

– Any proposal for a change should be simple to put

into practice with the existing knowledge and skills
in the community:
• Fit in with existing life style and culture and not conflict
with local beliefs
• Not require resources of money, materials, and time
that are not available locally
• Meet a felt need of the community
• Be seen by the people to convey real benefits in the
short term, not in the distant future.

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 Principles of Health Education (3/3)

• Know the environment for health education

– Conducive environment is needed for effective health education
e.g. spacious and quiet places
• Health facilities, outpatient department
• Community centers, religious centers and schools
• Home visits
• Timing for health education
– Convenient time for the audience
– Should fit with peoples’ circumstance
• Know what to talk-to
– Prepare a health talk considering the time available, language, and
audience mix.

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 Characteristics of Effective Health Education

• Directed at people who have influence in the community

• Repeated and reinforced over time using different methods
• Adaptable, and uses existing channels of communication -for
example, songs, drama, and story telling
• Entertaining and attracts the community's attention
• Uses clear simple language with local expressions and
emphasizes short term benefits of action
• Provides opportunities for dialogue and discussion to allow
learner participation and feedback on understanding and
implementation
• Uses demonstrations to show the benefits of adopting practices.

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 Roles of Health Education (1/2)
• Promoting good health practices, for example:
– Sanitation
– Clean drinking water
– Good hygiene
– Breast feeding
– Infant weaning
– Use of bed net
– Oral rehydration etc.

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 Roles of Health Education (2/2)
• Promoting use of preventive services for example,
immunization, screening, antenatal and child health
clinics.
• Promoting the correct use of medications and the
pursuit of rehabilitation regimens for example for
tuberculosis and leprosy.
• Enhances recognition of early symptoms of disease
and promoting early referral.
• Promotes community support for primary health care
and government control measures.
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 Purposes of Health Education (1/2)

• The ultimate aim of health education is to

change behavior in a positive way by:
– Positively influence the health behaviour of
individuals and communities, as well as living and
working conditions that influence their health
– Promote, maintain, and improve individual, family,
and community health.

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Purposes of Health Education (2/2)
– Increases knowledge of people on health and
health related matters
– Modifies beliefs and clarifies attitude and values
– Enables people to change behavior
– Attainment of the above would help or result into
• Improvement of the health status of individuals,
families, communities, states, and the nation
• Reduces disease morbidity and mortality
• Enhances the quality of life for all people.

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 Strategies for Health Education

• Information, Education and Communication (IEC)

– A technique used to communicate important information by
employing a wide range of communication media aiming at
changing behaviour by providing information to individuals and
communities through, mass media, print, electronic, sermons,
drama.
• Behavior Change Communication (BCC)
– A process for developing messages and approaches using a mix
of communication channels to encourage and sustain positive
and appropriate behaviour at individual, small groups,
community level.
• Advocacy, Communication and Social Mobilisation (ACSM)
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 Considerations for Effective Strategies for
Health Education (1/2)
• Status of audience
– In terms of sex, age, education, social-economic status and
language to be used, cultural beliefs and taboos.
• Reason for educating the audience
– Short time benefits/gains to the audience is more ideal to the
audience than long term gain.
• Information needed by the audience
– Information or health education should fit with people’s
circumstances for example, education about nutrition should be
based on foods that are available locally.
– Also the information should address the felt needs of the
community.

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 Considerations for Effective Strategies for Health Education (2/2)

• Media of communicating to the audience

– This will depend on the characteristics of the
audience in terms of number and geographical
coverage.
• Application of strategy in terms of time and place
– Availability of time will determine the type of strategy
you use, if time is limited, to reach as many people as
possible will require a mass media but this will also be
influenced by the place you are.

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 Roles of Health Care Providers in Health Education

• Read the notes in your guide

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 Health Education Media

• The following are various media used for communicating health

messages:
• Traditional media:
– Spoken word (talking, meetings, stories)
– Performance (local dancing, plays, and shows)
• Print media:
– Posters, leaflets, banners
– Exhibitions
• Mass media:
– TV, video, film
– Radio
– Newspapers

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• Refer to Handout 5.1: Criteria of Selecting
Appropriate Media
– Group 4 to read and present on Tuesday 28th
November 2017

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 Information, Education and
Communication (IEC)
• IEC uses educational techniques to
communicate important information
• It employs a wide range of communications
media
• The goal of IEC is to change behavior by
providing information to individuals and
communities.

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 Steps of Creating IEC Messages

• Needs assessment
• Plan of action, including
– Goals
– Objectives
• Periodic monitoring and evaluation based on
goals and objectives

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 Effective IEC Messages
• Should be clear and creative
• Capture both the mind and the heart
• Stimulate the audience to take the intended
action
• Are positive and give hope
• Are appealing and persuasive.

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 Effective Strategies Should Consider

• Communicate a benefit: what does a person

or community stands to gain?
• Communicate a promise: If you take this
action you are more likely to…
• Provide supporting points: data or evidence
from someone who has benefitted
• Lead to the desired action response.

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 Effective IEC Messages
• Are well planned
• Appeal to the target population
• Are positive, attractive and call for attention
• Avoid themes that can encourage discrimination or
stigma
• Are sensitive to tradition, culture, norms and values
• Address social conditions of the target audience
• Use appropriate channels for the message.

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 How to Know if Message is Effective
• Messages can be pre-tested with a small group
before being shared at a community level
• Make sure that the message is carefully
implemented by conducting monitoring and
evaluation
• Check regularly on how the message is received:
– Did it have the intended effect?
– How can the message be improved?
– Consider ways to make it more clear

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 IEC messages related to TB/HIV care and treatment can:

• Reduce the stigma associated with TB/HIV

• Improve case detection
• Enhance adherence to long-term treatment
• Strengthen disease prevention and control.

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 Challenges to Communication of HIV
Messages
• People can get tired of the same messages
• Many sources of messages: different groups
provide different messages
• Messages may go against norms and religious
or cultural beliefs
• HIV information changes daily and it is hard to
keep the public informed as information
changes.

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• Refer to worksheet 5.1: Develop a Health
Education Activity
– Group 5 to read and present on Tuesday 28th
November 2017.

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 Thanks
www.ttchih.org
fkessy@ttcih.ac.tz

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