Health Education

Objectives
• The definition of health education
• The aims of health education
• The principles of health education
• The contents of health education
• The methods of health education
• How to practice health education
Definition of health education
• According to WHO, Health education is any combination of learning
experiences designed to help individuals and communities improve
their health, by increasing their knowledge or influencing their
attitudes.
• It can be defined as the principle by which individuals are groups of
people learn to behave in a manner conductive to the promotion,
maintenance, or restoration of health
Aims of health education
• Health promotion and disease prevention
• Early diagnosis and management
• Utilization of available health services
• To impact desirable health practices
• To develop a positive attitude toward health
• To improve the school and community health status
• To educate the community about the prevalence of superstitions and
prejudices
Alma Ata Declaration (1978)
• Health education is a process aimed at encouraging people to want to
be healthy, to do what they can individually and collectively to
maintain health, and to seek help when needed
Contents of health education
• Human biology – how to keep physically fit, the effects of alcohol,
smoking and drug on the body
• Nutrition – to promote good dietary habits
• Hygiene – personal and environmental
• Family health – child bearing and rearing
• Disease prevention and control – education of people about the
prevention and control of locally endemic diseases mental health
• Prevention of accidents
• Use of health services
• The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a health-promoting
school as ‘one that fosters health and learning, strives to provide a
healthy environment; implements policies and practices that respect
wellbeing and dignity’
Why the school is a key setting for health
promotion
• Education is a resource for health. This is recognized by the WHO, and the
United Nations included ‘achieving universal primary education’ as one of its
eight Millennium Development Goals.
• Health is a prerequisite for education: ‘Children who face violence, hunger,
substance abuse, and despair cannot possibly focus on academic excellence.
There is no curriculum brilliant enough to compensate for a hungry stomach
or distracted mind’ (National Action Plan for Comprehensive School Health
Education, 1992).
• School is seen as an important context for health promotion, principally
because it reaches a large proportion of the population for many years. The
emphasis on schools is also a recognition that the learning of health-related
knowledge, attitudes, and behavior begins at an early age.
Health promotion in schools
• Health promotion in schools is now closely linked to personal and
social development and delivered in the curriculum as personal, social
health, and economic education (PSHE).
• The aim is for young people to be in charge of their own lives, and the
role of the school is to develop self-esteem and self-awareness.
Emphasis is placed on the process of education and finding teaching
and learning strategies that encourage reflection and personal
awareness. The direction and organization of the health promotion
program also aim to reflect the needs of children and young people.
Policies and practices
• Schools may have policies on equal opportunities, discipline and
rewards, health and safety, bullying, healthy food and various
curriculum issues, including sex education.
Social environment; Curriculum; Physical
environment
Social environment
• The quality of social interactions among pupils, between staff and pupils ,and between the staff
contributes to the ethos or climate in a school. Increasingly, schools are recognizing that healthy schools
which value positive relationships, prioritize learning and build self-esteem also drive up educational
standards.
Curriculum
• The formal curriculum includes knowledge and understanding of health-related topics (e.g. biology and
nutrition) at a level appropriate for pupils’ ages and social and cognitive development. The informal
curriculum refers to areas not formally taught or examined, including pastoral care and extracurricular
activities in areas such as sports and arts. In England and many other countries, there is no statutory
provision for health promotion, and its integration into the curriculum is patchy.
Physical environment
• The physical environment and layout of a school may be stimulating or depressing. Schools should provide
a clean and safe environment with no litter or graffiti, clean toilets, and a welcoming but secure entrance.
There should be areas for play, social interaction, and for quiet study or reading. In many countries the
provision of basic amenities such as sanitation, water and air cleanliness may be priorities.
The International Union of Health Promotion
and Education guidelines for HPSs
• promote the health and well-being of students
• uphold social justice and equity concepts
• involve student participation and empowerment
• provide a safe and supportive environment linking health and education
issues and systems
• address the health and well-being issues of staff
• collaborate with the local community
• integrate into the school’s ongoing activities
• set realistic goals
• engage parents and families in health promotion.
Mass Communication and
Health Promotion
KEY CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS
• Medium/media is/are the channel of communication, for example, social
media.
• Media advocacy is the use of media to promote a policy change.
• Message is what is being communicated.
• Social marketing is an approach used to develop activities aimed at
changing people’s behavior, borrowing ideas from commercial marketing.
• Behavior change communication involves communication strategies to
promote positive behaviors. Strategies follow a systematic process from
formative research through planning, implementation, and evaluation.
Importance of the Topic
• Communication of information and advice is central to health
promotion strategies.
• The mass media now combine the capacity to reach large numbers of
people with the capacity to be accessed individually as and when
people choose.
Mass media have a long history of persuading people to buy a vast
array of products and lifestyles which create ill health, such as tobacco,
alcohol and fast cars, through both paid advertising and current affairs
coverage. Paid advertising and campaigns, unpaid news coverage, social
media, social marketing and media advocacy are all used to promote
health. Practitioners also use posters, leaflets and other tools to
enhance communication with service users. This chapter looks at the
potential and limitations of using various media in these different ways
to promote health.
McQuail (2010) identifies several different
roles played by the media:
• the main source of essential information
• the arena where public-life affairs are played out
• the source of definitions and images of social reality
• where values are constructed
• The media may also be an unhealthy influence, advertising unhealthy
products, for example, fast food, or transmitting unhealthy messages,
for example, that drinking excessively is fun and fashionable. The
media also play a major role in constructing society’s views on health
issues and services.
The role of mass media
• To raise public awareness
• Media advocacy – creating a climate of opinion conducive to policy
change through maintaining the salience of an issue and making sure
it is thought about.
• Social marketing – using the ‘marketing mix’ to achieve behavior
change.
• Direct communication – using social media, usually to support
behavior change.
Media advocacy objectives are:
• to get an issue discussed
• to get an issue discussed differently
• to discredit opponents
• to bring in new voices
• to introduce new facts or perspectives
• to shift risk perceptions