Health Education Lecture 3

Health Education (Lecture 3)

• Objectives:
  • Define health education
  • Identify aims, goals, and objectives of health education
  • Discuss the principles of health education
  • Identify who can practice health education
  • Discuss the contents and scopes of health education
  • Identify the role of health educator and nurse educator
  • Describe approaches to health education
  • Describe methods of health education
  • Discuss the differences between adult and child education
  • Understand ethical issues in health education

Definition of Health Education

• According to the WHO, health education is a combination of learning experiences designed to help individuals and communities improve their health by increasing knowledge or influencing attitudes.
• Health education is a process encouraging people to want to be healthy, know how to stay healthy, do what they can individually and collectively to maintain health, and seek help when needed (Alma-Ata declaration 1978).

Aims of Health Education

• Health promotion and disease prevention
• Early diagnosis and management
• Utilization of available health services
• Impacting desirable health practices
• Developing positive attitudes towards health
• Improving school and community health status
• Educating the community about superstitions and prejudices

Goals of Health Education

• Help people achieve an optimal level of health
• Facilitate individuals' ability to improve personal living conditions
• Enable informed decisions about personal, family, and community health practices
• Appropriate utilization of health services
• Encourage practice of healthy life style behaviors
• Promotion of health and prevention of diseases

Specific Objectives of Health Education

• Make health an asset valued by the community
• Increase knowledge of factors affecting health
• Encourage behavior that promotes and maintains health
• Enlist support for public health measures; press for appropriate governmental action when necessary

Principles of Health Education

• Credibility: The message must be perceived as trustworthy by the receiver.
• Interest: People are unlikely to listen to things not of interest to them.
• Participation: Encourage people to actively work with health workers to identify health problems and develop solutions.
• Motivation: Motivation is important and contagious.
• Comprehension: Communicate in a language people understand, avoiding unfamiliar words.
• Reinforcement: Repeat the message in different ways to increase memorization.
• Learning by Doing: Learning is an active process, not just memorization.
• Known to Unknown: Start with what is known and move to unknown knowledge.
• Setting an Example: The health educator should set a good example.
• Good Human Relations: Share ideas, information, and feelings.
• Feedback: Modify the system's elements (message, channels) using feedback.

Who Provides Health Education?

• Trained and/or certified health education specialists
• Para-professionals and health professionals performing health education functions as part of their primary responsibilities (e.g., medical treatment, nursing, social work, physical therapy, oral hygiene).

Opportunities for Health Education

• At Hospitals:
  • Outpatient department: Exhibiting pictures, photos, charts, models in waiting halls, arrange group discussions, pamphlets, street plays.
  • Inpatient department: similar activities as outpatient departments
• At Home: Information during patient care, family member education, live demonstrations, discussions.
• In the Community: Health education regarding environmental sanitation, schools, factories

Contents & Scopes of Health Education

• Human Biology: Keeping physically fit; effects of alcohol, smoking, and drugs.
• Nutrition: Promoting good dietary habits
• Hygiene: Personal, environmental, and food hygiene.
• Family Health: Promoting family self-reliance in childbirth and child rearing.
• Disease Prevention and Control: Educating people about prevention & control of local endemic diseases (essential in PHC).
• Mental Health
• Prevention of accidents
• Use of health services

Role of a Health Educator

• Talk to people, listen to problems
• Identify behavior or actions causing the problem
• Find reasons for behaviors and health problems
• Encourage people to share ideas for solving problems
• Help select useful, simple solutions
• Encourage people to choose the best suited option to their circumstances

Role of a Nurse in Health Education

• Gain the confidence of people
• Arouse interest in good health; motivate people to change habits
• Develop a sense of responsibility among people towards community health
• Motivate or encourage them to utilize health services
• Select subject matter that addresses needs
• Perform needed roles/responsibilities as a health educator

Role of a Nurse in Health Education (Continued)

• Use appropriate audio-visual aids
• Use health education opportunities wisely; plan and implement continuously
• Take sufficient participation and cooperation of government and voluntary agencies
• Maintain effective communication

Group Member Rules

• Express ideas clearly
• Listen to what others say
• Do not interrupt during speeches
• Make only relevant statements
• Accept criticism gracefully
• Help to reach a conclusion

Approaches to Health Education

• Regulatory
• Service
• Health education
• Primary health care

Legal/Regulatory Approach

• Governmental intervention to alter human behavior
• Examples: child marriage restraint in Palestine, mandatory seat belt and helmet use.
• Advantages; simple, quick.
• Governments can legislate balanced diets and smoking bans.

Service Approach

• Aims to provide all necessary health services.
• Often unsuccessful because it doesn't address the felt needs of the people.
• Example: Provision of water seal latrines; many people in rural areas did not use them.

Health Education Approach

• Educaate people through planned learning experiences
• Encourage individuals to make their own healthy choices
• Address health problems (e.g., smoking cessation, safe water provision, birth control)
• Begin with children and young people

Primary Health Care Approach

• Start with community involvement in health service planning and delivery.
• Successful approach requiring people to receive necessary guidance from health care providers to identify health issues, solve problems, and work toward solutions.
• Example: Community involvement

Primary Health Care Approach (Continued)

• Since individuals vary in socio-economic conditions, traditions, attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge, a single approach is not always suitable.
• A combination of approaches depending on local circumstances is necessary.

Practice of Health Education

• Audio-Visual Aids: Helpful for simplifying complex concepts (e.g. radio, tape recorders, microphones, amplifiers, chalk boards, leaflets, posters, slides.)
• Combined Audio-Visual Aids: (e.g. television, sound films, slide-tapes)

Methods of Health Education

• Individual Approach:
  • Personal contact
  • Home visits
  • Personal letters
• Group Approach:
  • Lectures
  • Demonstrations
  • Discussion methods
  • Group discussions
  • Panel discussions
  • Symposiums
  • Workshops
  • Conferences
  • Seminars
  • Role plays
• Mass Approach:
  • Television
  • Radio
  • News papers
  • Printed materials
  • Direct mailing
  • Posters
  • Health museums
  • Exhibitions
  • Folk methods
  • Internet
  • Films

Individual Approach (Pros and Cons)

• Pros: Credible, permits two-way discussion, can be motivational and supportive, most effective for teaching, care, and helping
• Cons: Expensive, time-consuming, limited audience

Group Approach (Pros and Cons)

• Pros: Familiar, trusted, influential, provides motivation/support (more than media alone), can be inexpensive, offer shared experiences, can reach larger audience
• Cons: May not provide personal attention, needs approval from the organization, can be costly and time-consuming

Mass Approach (Pros and Cons)

• Pros: Reach large numbers rapidly, updated information, information controlled by organization, can be tailored to target audience, can be interactive, can use demonstrations/visuals
• Cons: Can be expensive, many people may not have internet access, audience may be inactive, may require monitoring/maintenance over time

Planning & Management

• The specified health education strategy should consider the socio-cultural, psycho-social, political, and economic contexts within the community.
• The planning process follows these steps:
  1. Identify community problems.
  2. Collect information from community members.
  3. Analyze community problems.
  4. Prioritize problems
  5. Create Goals and Objectives.
  6. Assess available resources
  7. Consider solutions to the prioritized problems.
  8. Develop a plan of action.
  9. Implement the plan of action.
  10. Monitor and evaluate progress and adjust plans accordingly.
  11. Reassess the planning process.

Learning Assumptions

• People of all ages can learn, with learning speeds varying
• Individual experiences, anxiety, and environment affect learning.
• Instructor attitude and classroom behavior matter
• Depth of learning depends on how learners analyze and articulate their experiences
• Access to resources helps to carry out new plans of action
• Participation in the learning process enhances learning

Code of Ethics for Health Education Professionals

• Responsibility to the Public: Adherence to self-determination and autonomy of the individual.
• Responsibility to the Profession: Professional behavior by exhibiting appropriate conduct.
• Responsibility to Employers: Accountability for professional activities and actions.
• Responsibility in Delivering Health Education: Respect the rights, dignity, confidentiality, and worth of all people.
• Responsibility in Research and Evaluation: Conduct research and evaluations in accordance with federal laws, organizational policies, and professional standards.
• Responsibility in Professional Preparation: Provide quality health education that benefits both the profession and the public.

Pedagogy vs. Andragogy

• (Table comparing pedagogies):* (Refer to page 41 for detailed information)