Health Education

1
Health Education

• Practice Settings
• (Excerpted from Chapter 15 of Introduction to
  Health Education and Health Promotion by Bruce
  G. Simons-Morton, Water H. Greene, and Nell H.
  Gottlieb, Waveland Press, Inc. 1995)

2
Introduction

• Health education occurs in a variety of places,
  these include
• Schools
• Worksites
• Health care organizations
• Health departments
• Voluntary health agencies
• Community settings

3
Comparison of Settings
4
Objectives for Educational and Community-Based
Programs by Settings
5
School Health Education Themes

• Education and health are interrelated.
• The biggest threats to health are social
  morbidities.
• A more comprehensive, integrated approach is
  needed.
• Health promotion and education efforts should be
  centered in and around school.
• Prevention efforts are cost-effective the social
  and economic costs of inaction are too high and
  still escalating.

6
Quality Classroom Instruction Goals

• Students embrace health as a value
• Students be provided with the knowledge, skills,
  and empowerment needed to choose and maintain
  healthful personal behaviors
• As a lifetime learner, students be able to
  obtain, evaluate, and use new information for
  future health-related decisions.

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Comprehensive School Health Program
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Health Education

• A planned, sequential, K-12 curriculum that
  addresses the physical, mental, emotional and
  social dimensions of health.
• The curriculum is designed to motivate and assist
  students to maintain and improve their health,
  prevent disease, and reduce health-related risk
  behaviors.
• It allows students to develop and demonstrate
  increasingly sophisticated health-related
  knowledge, attitudes, skills, and practices.
• The comprehensive health education curriculum
  includes a variety of topics.

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Physical Education

• A planned, sequential K-12 curriculum that
  provides cognitive content and learning
  experiences in a variety of activity areas.
• Quality physical education should promote,
  through a variety of planned physical activities,
  each student's optimum physical, mental,
  emotional, and social development, and should
  promote activities and sports that all students
  enjoy and can pursue throughout their lives.

10
Health Services

• Services provided for students to appraise,
  protect, and promote health.
• Qualified professionals such as physicians,
  nurses, dentists, health educators, and other
  allied health personnel provide these services.

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Nutrition Services

• Access to a variety of nutritious and appealing
  meals that accommodate the health and nutrition
  needs of all students.
• The school nutrition services offer students a
  learning laboratory for classroom nutrition and
  health education, and serve as a resource for
  linkages with nutrition-related community
  services.

12
Counseling and Psychological Services

• Services provided to improve students' mental,
  emotional, and social health. These services
  include individual and group assessments,
  interventions, and referrals.
• Organizational assessment and consultation skills
  of counselors and psychologists contribute not
  only to the health of students but also to the
  health of the school environment.

13
Healthy School Environment

• The physical and aesthetic surroundings and the
  psychosocial climate and culture of the school.
• The psychological environment includes the
  physical, emotional, and social conditions that
  affect the well-being of students and staff.

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Health Promotion for Staff

• Opportunities for school staff to improve their
  health status through activities such as health
  assessments, health education and health-related
  fitness activities.
• This personal commitment often transfers into
  greater commitment to the health of students and
  creates positive role modeling.
• Health promotion activities have improved
  productivity, decreased absenteeism, and reduced
  health insurance costs.

15
Family/Community Involvement

• An integrated school, parent, and community
  approach for enhancing the health and well-being
  of students.
• School health advisory councils, coalitions, and
  broadly based constituencies for school health
  can build support for school health program
  efforts.
• Schools actively solicit parent involvement and
  engage community resources and services to
  respond more effectively to the health-related
  needs of students.

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Worksite Health Education Programs

• Physical activity and fitness
• Nutrition and weight control
• Stress reduction
• Worker safety and health
• Blood pressure and/or cholesterol education and
  control
• Alcohol, smoking and drugs

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Motivations for Employers

• Reduces medical care costs
• Enhances productivity
• Enhances the image of the company

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An Example of a Worksite Health Education Program
- Nutrition
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Health Care Settings

• In the hospital, direct patient education is part
  of ongoing patient care and is typically
  delivered by nurses and physicians
• Group health education on such topics as diabetes
  and prenatal care are also provided

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An Example of Health Education in Health Care
Settings Cystic Fibrosis (CF)
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Federal Community Health Settings

• Public tax-supported health agencies
• Department of Health and Human Services
• The National Institutes of Health
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• The Food and Drug Administration
• The Indian Health Service
• The Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health
  Administration
• The Health Care Finance Administration

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Local and State Health Departments

• Direct health services are offered by the local
  health departments.
• Planning, Consultation, vital statistics,
  laboratory services, regulation, and coordination
  functions occur at the state as well as the local
  levels.
• Health educators work in family planning,
  nutrition, dental health, tobacco control,
  chronic disease, AIDS, immunizations, and
  communicable diseases,

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Example of Local and State Health Department
Health Education Strategies