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.

7. Comprehensive School Health Program

8. 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.

9. 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.

11. 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.

14. 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.

16. 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

17. Motivations for Employers • Reduces medical care costs • Enhances productivity • Enhances the image of the company

18. An Example of a Worksite Health Education Program - Nutrition

19. 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

20. An Example of Health Education in Health Care Settings – Cystic Fibrosis (CF)

21. 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

22. 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,

23. Example of Local and State Health Department Health Education Strategies