Types of Health Education - Report Example

Strategy Paper: Health Education Health Education Defined Health education is defined in a number of ways but if one is familiar with the relationship between health behaviour and education, it is generally a systematic, planned, and set of techniques that positively influence antecedent behaviours such as awareness, knowledge, skills, beliefs, attitudes, and so on, and facilitate voluntary development of healthy behaviour (Sharma & Romas, 2011). Since people’s behaviour plays an important role in the acquisition and persistence of different health problems, health education becomes a professional and scientific field focusing on major causes of mortality and morbidity, behavioural and lifestyle factors such as diet, substance abuse, sedentary work and leisure, and so on. In other words, health education is aimed on making individuals aware of both positive and negative consequences of their behaviour (Koelen & Van de Ban, 2004). Health promotion is multifaceted and often utilizes different approaches depending on circumstances and need. These approaches are not only correlated but overlapping and complementary in practice such medical and behavioural change approaches intended to prevent disease and disability by promoting uptake of disease preventing medicine and attempts to encourage people adopt a healthy lifestyle. The education approach on the other hand is linked to empowerment where health agenda is communicated to improve individual and collective health as well as preventing illness by influencing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour of people in the community (Piper, 2009). As opposed to traditional approaches that commonly stress individualism, empowerment in health education is consciousness-raising and community centred. It is a process of liberating people’s capacity to act with others to grow, change, and improve quality of life (Black et al, 2009). A good example of such approach is the IVAC model (Investigation-Visions-Action-Change) developed by Jensen used to support the Health Promoting Schools project aimed to promote health through both formal and informal curriculum. HPS also promote equity and empowerment in learning about health. The model on the other hand provides students with opportunities to define local health problem, acquire knowledge, envision possible solution, and take some action to address it (Ferreira & Welsh, 1997). Three schools were selected as part of HPS, one in Australia, one in Denmark, and one in Czech Republic. This Australian school was chosen because of its continuing involvement in Queensland's Health Promoting Schools programme. Students spent four weeks investigating the effect of television viewing on their health. Activities include reviewing content of current children’s programme on television aimed to facilitate discovery of the most common type of advertising shown during the programme such as toys and fast food. The discovery enables students to imagine alternative advertising and developed posters of these alternatives with healthier theme. Some students developed booklet of outdoor games to encourage other students to play outdoors more often rather than watching television most of the time. Democratic approaches to health education such as this can help improve the health of children, create supportive environment for health, strengthen community involvement and action, empower individuals and enable development of personal skills (ibid). There are several types of health education. There are health educations implemented in a school environment to support healthy behaviours. Community-based health education draws on social relationship and organizations that include media and interpersonal strategies. This community intervention is often conducted in churches, clubs, recreation centres, and typically designed to encourage healthful nutrition, reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, and so on. There are also worksite health promotions aimed to improve worker health and health practices. For high-risk individuals, health education is conducted in health care settings and focusing on preventing and detecting disease, and helping people make decisions in managing acute and chronic diseases. At home, health education and behavioural change are conducted through different channels such as home visits, Internet, telephone, and mail (Glanz et al, 2008). Theoretical Origins of Strategy Being healthy generally means sound body, mind, and spirit but health is dynamic and changes from time to time. Moreover, health depends on individual health behaviour or personal attributes such as beliefs, expectations, motives, values, perceptions, and others (Sharma & Romas, 2011). Theories about health education and promotion suggest that both have emerged from different disciplines such as biological science, behavioural science, economics, political science, and others. For instance, awareness is an important factor in health education because in order to change people must first become conscious about health implications of things before they can change their behaviour such as being aware that smoking is harmful. Similarly, information enables a person to collect facts about change such as action, idea, object, person, and situation. These are helpful information found in pamphlets, brochures, flyers, compact discs, videos, and so on. More importantly, a person needs to learn facts and gain insights related to collected information or knowledge, which is part of the cognitive domain. These include recalling data, comprehension, translation, interpolation, interpretation of instructions and problems, and application of the concept in new situation or apply what the person learned. Lastly, awareness, information, and knowledge will not be effective if a person does not have skills to perform required actions, thus it should be developed and practiced. These include perception or the ability to use sensory cues, mind-set or readiness to act, guided response, confidence and proficiency, automatic performance, adaptation skills or the ability to modify behaviour to fit different requirements, and origination or the creating new movement patterns to solve a particular problem (Sharma & Romas, 2011). Health education is centred on behaviour, as positive informed change in health behaviour is the ultimate aim of health education programs (Glanz et al, 2008). Traditionally, communication and persuasion theory (verbal, visual, and written communication) provide the framework for health education but additional concepts and theories improved understanding and prediction of health behaviour. For instance, sociological based Symbolic Interaction Theory see behaviour as function of the way the person perceives and understands the world thus each individual may give different meaning to situation and objects (Kastenbaum, 1993, p.205). The Learning Style theory, Constructivist Theory, and Multiple Intelligences theory are also influential in health education. Learning style theory for instance, are ways or conditions where learners can learn more efficiently and effectively (White & Dudley-Brown, 2011). Similarly, learners learn effectively and efficiently when they actively gather, generate, process, and personalize health-related information as in constructivist theory (Black et al, 2009). Multiple intelligence on the other hand promote the integration of different symbol systems such words, pictures, numbers, body language, rhythms, and environmental cues to enable students to learn more in less time (Ubbes, 2008). The theoretical basis for critical thinking in health education is the belief on the ability of man to examine and evaluate beliefs and actions and decide on what is true or not. Decision-making often required critical thinking or assessing potential problems and deciding which is more appropriate to do (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2009). Determining which specific population require health education is critical thinking that includes systematic planning, execution, and evaluation. Similarly, choosing between health and unhealthy lifestyle is critical thinking (Ivanov & Blue, 2008). More importantly, the use of behaviour theory can facilitate the process of improving health and behaviour. For instance, this theory can guide researcher on discovering why people do or do not adopt a healthy lifestyle as well as organizing information into patterns that can be used to predict behaviour and eventually improve health outcomes (Simons-Morton et al, 2011). Behaviour theory may include some other supporting theories and models such as the Health Belief Model or the effect of personal values in making behaviour change, Social Learning Theory where people are believed to take action when the outcome will lead to desirable change. Moreover, it can also take into account the Theory of Reasoned Action where the attitude toward the behaviour and belief in what others think about the behaviour affects individual decisions and subsequent actions (Minelli & Breckon, 2008). In summary, health education is dependent on numerous theories that take into account different variables to influence behaviour. They serve as foundation and structure, and application of these theories to practice increase probability of success of any health education program (Bensley & Brookins-Fisher, 2008). Health Education in Practice In health promotion, education provides the required agenda setting and critical consciousness raising. It is about informing and influencing individual or collective decision-making (Laverack, 2004). It is embedded in the broad discipline of health promotion designed to facilitate voluntary actions conducive to health through knowledge and skills enhancement (Talbot & Verrinder, 2009). Its key roles are tackling the structural determinants of health, emancipate and empower the community, and facilitate voluntary adoption of health-enhancing behaviour. This is because structural factors strongly influence health and health-related behaviour, health promotion includes equity and empowerment, power is a major factor in relation to individual health behaviour and choices, and upholding the principle of voluntarism is an important part of health promotion (Green & Tones, 2010). In Hong Kong for instance, health and education are linked to economic performance. For this reason, health promotion is often accompanied by health education programmes intended to provide information, explore values and attitudes, enable health decisions, and acquisition of skills to facilitate behavioural change. Since health promotion is not all about encouraging the target population, health education programmes also include training people to develop and maintain their self-esteem and self-empowerment so they can take action about their own health. The “Healthy Schools Programme” launched by the Chinese University of Hong Kong in cooperation with three other major schools offered participants with knowledge skills they can use to understand common diseases particularly those that are considered major cause of death in Hong Kong. They are being trained to understand emotional problems and ways to cope with stress, improve self-esteem, nutrition and exercise, and others (Lee et al, 2003). In Australia, national program promoting the health of Australians include educational approaches in controlling smoking and tobacco, reduce morbidity and mortality due to cancer, prevention and improved management of cardiovascular disease, control of HIV/AIDS, and others. Aside from the banning of smoking in public places and other restrictions, the programme mobilized the community to change by informing them about the health dangers of smoking. The result is a major shift in community views and attitudes as shown by Australians high level of knowledge on the harmful effects of smoking and overwhelming support to reduce involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke, smoking bans in childcare centres, toy shops, fast food, and restaurants (NHMRC, 1996). Addressing health issues has been a part of school programs in Australia for over a century. These include health promotion aimed to solve societal health issues such as drug misuse, obesity, depression, sedentary behaviour, and so on. The role of education in this health promotion is to promote attitudes and behaviours, which contribute to personal, and community well-being, develop decision-making ability about personal and community health matters, and acquire skills they can use to achieve quality of life. One of the conditions identified for effective health promotion include strong focus on cognitive outcomes (RACV, 2006). Australia’s National Oral Health Plan 2004-2013 includes dental health education aimed to promote and prevent diseases early in the pathway and build individual and community capacity by imparting knowledge and appropriate attitudes to health (National Advisory Committee on Oral Health, 2004). Health education in Bangladesh is used in preventive medicine intended to promote healthy lifestyles. According to Jahan (2000), SAFE or Sanitation and Family education developed and implemented by CARE-Bangladesh used traditional concept of dissemination of information leading to functional health literacy where community members such as children, parents, young adults benefit from the health information. A special approach was used to educate men, women, and children in and out of school. For instance, to promote hygiene education, the program conduct both courtyard and teashop sessions with general people, children’s education session in and out of school, and sessions with key opinion leaders. The courtyard sessions were participatory and lively education where learning techniques and interactive methods were used. It also includes sharing experiences and participants own initiative in improving their hygiene behaviour and community health. The teashop sessions, mostly held in public places, help increase male interest on hygienic practices and good health. SAFE field workers conducted the children’s education sessions and encouraged children play interactive games about good hygiene behaviours and improved health (p. 289). The SAFE health education program also employed an innovative behaviour-based monitoring system observing and identifying what participants actually did to improve their lifestyle and health. For instance, households were regularly observed to examine actual hygiene practice. These approaches to hygiene education evolved as members of the community express their opinions and feedback about the program. They are also involved in data collection, analysis of findings, and development of appropriate solutions. SAFE in general is a practical example of health education program designed to achieve interactive and critical health literacy (Jahan, 2000). In the “Healthy Eating Initiatives” case studies conducted by Peters et al. (2004), health education programs addressed causes of obesity such as poor eating habits, excessive consumption of foods high in sugars and saturated fats, sedentary lifestyle and inadequate physical activity. These include application of different approaches such as “Food for Thought” that involves mapping food access and fruit and vegetable consumption and education support group promoting weight loss. “Art and Health”, a four week glass art workshop in the healthy living centre. The work was actually about health food, education about fruit and vegetables, healthy eating, and issues surrounding positive attitudes, confidence building, and relaxation. The “Eat 5 A Day Project” is headed by a local theatre company in coordination with teachers and children in Primary, Nursery, and Infant schools to educate children about the importance of eating 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day (p.3). In summary, health education in practice often offers knowledge and skills to empower individuals or community. It is not one the promote dependency but encourage voluntary adoption of health-enhancing behaviour. The Healthy Schools Programme for instance, promotes and encourages acquisition of knowledge and skills necessary for voluntary behavioural change. Similarly, health education programmes in Australia, Bangladesh, and the United Kingdom enable individual and community change through education by informing everyone about the danger of certain activities or habits. Conclusion Health education is a systematic program that positively influences antecedent’s behaviours in order to facilitate voluntary development of healthy behaviour. Since health depends on individual health behaviour, it is important that health education and promotion consider important theories concerning behavioural change, information and development needs, communication and persuasion, symbolic interaction, learning styles, constructivism, multiple intelligence, critical thinking, and others. In practice, health education is widely being used to raise consciousness about health, empowerment, and facilitation of voluntary health-enhancing behaviour. Health education programmes can be found in school, community, organization, worksites, and others. The success of any health education program is dependent on the application of numerous theories earlier and full understanding the community or the target population. 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