Health Education in Diverse Environments - Essay Example

 Health Education in Diverse Environments In community In the community level, health education may initiate at individual or family level. However, sustaining change depends on the reinforcement at the community level. The strategies applied in this category must empower the community with the health information, create opportunities, encourage healthful choices and equip individuals with essential skills for accessing financial and other incentives. The scheme utilizes various educational components that include individual, group and community-wide programs (Wurzbach, 2004). Strategies at this level targets influencing public participation. This is because people should be encouraged to participate in the decision-making procedure in order to develop effective strategies for their community (Lee, 2009). In Heath Departments Health education at health departments is implemented by equipping departmental heads with modern healthy procedures. Health educators utilize strategies such as organizing educational seminars and conferences for the heads. Furthermore, the educators may offer certificates to candidates who complete their courses in order to encourage a learning culture. These educators use printed and audio-visual materials in delivering their content. These strategies enhance the implementation of the educational programs (Lee, 2009). In Voluntary Health Organizations In the Voluntary Health Organization (VHO), health education is implemented through voluntary based health promoting activities. Educators allow members of the society to enroll in their activities through which they learn important health related concepts. Furthermore, volunteerism provides members of the society with the opportunity of working together with the solution finding team. The volunteers may later transfer the learnt concepts to other members of the society. Educators may utilize approaches such as the road shows in articulating their ideas. Health Care and Hospitals Health educators implement health education in hospitals by organizing educational seminars to equip the hospital fraternity with essential health procedures. Furthermore, the team provides health care employees with standardized manuals for crosschecking important procedures in order to improve quality standards. Educators employ monitoring and evaluation approaches to determine the efficiency of their programs. This includes conducting frequent surveys to examine employees’ skills in handling health procedures (Lee, 2009). Worksite Wellness In the context of worksite wellness, heath educators are committed to providing essential resources and guidelines that would increase the employees’ performance. In this category, educators target improving health and well-being of workers by encouraging them to adjust their behavior and embrace a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, educators participate actively in designing, developing, implementing and evaluating worksite wellness programs (Bensley & Brookins-Fisher, 2009). School Health In the school set-ups, health educators emphasize the need of including health education in the curriculum. Educators ensure that students obtain appropriate information on health, disease and disease prevention. These programs also encourage students into developing critical thinking in the context of health and sickness evaluation. Implementation approaches include developing programs that explore critical subject such as substance abuse, safety, sexual abuse, teen pregnancy, risk-taking behavior and others that affect the youths (Bensley & Brookins-Fisher, 2009). Colleges, Universities, and Professional Organizations In the college and university levels, health education encourages individuals to develop personal life-long health schemes that include healthy eating, social relationships, exercise and avoidance of unhealthy habits. Furthermore, health educators initiate personality development programs that make individuals value the need of social responsibility and engage in promotion of healthy education in the community. Within the professional organizations, health educators offer consultancy and specialized counseling services that promote healthy procedures (Wurzbach, 2004). Faith Based Organizations In the faith-based organization, health educators implement heath education by incorporating health lesson in religious teaching and activities. Furthermore, they make individuals participate in health promotion procedures by emphasizing religious ideologies that value the need of developing a healthy community. They also describe health-promoting procedures under the religious perspective to make individuals adopt their plans. The major challenge facing health educators includes lack of commitment of some stakeholders. This is because effective implementation of educational plans demands extensive cooperation and coordination at various levels (Ayyagari, Grossman & Sloan, 2011). Furthermore, health educators are often unable to realize their objectives due to resistances and lack of support from relevant authorities. Other challenges include social-cultural dilemmas and economic problems because of limited resources. In the community set up, the program targets the entire community in order to develop a positive change. Particularly, community based schemes demands active participation of the family, faith communities, the media, employers, voluntary, educators, the government, agencies and health care institutions (Bensley & Brookins-Fisher, 2009). Educational strategies at this level mainly targets healthy people. This is because health promotion should reach individuals before they are symptomatic and when changing healthy habits can prevent diseases, disability and death. The target audience in the health department category includes influential health care administrators and policy makers. This ensures effective administration of healthy procedures. In voluntary organizations, the target audience mainly includes the society. In the hospital environment, education plans target employees and in school and colleges, the strategies target the students or the youths. Lastly, health education targets believers in the context of faith-based organizations (Ayyagari, Grossman & Sloan, 2011). Each of the highlighted settings is associated with various benefits. Community set up provides a comprehensive approach of accessing the entire society. Hospital, departmental health and worksite wellness improve employees’ working standards by empowering them with essential skills. School and college settings provide effective strategies for promoting health education among the youths. The benefits associated with these settings outweigh the barriers affirming the need of being sensitive to diverse environments when promoting healthy. Health educators evaluate the needs and concerns of each category of audience in different set-ups in order to develop effecting strategies that are suited for every audience. Consequently, healthy educators design their strategies to suit the most urgent demands. References Ayyagari, P., Grossman, D., & Sloan, F. (2011). Education and health: Evidence on adults with diabetes. International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics, 11(1), 35-54. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10754-010-9087-x Bensley, R. J., & Brookins-Fisher, J. (2009). Community health education methods: A practical guide. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Lee, A. (2009). Health-promoting schools. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 7(1), 11-17. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2165/00148365-200907010-00002 Wurzbach, M. E. (2004). Community health education and promotion: A guide to program design and evaluation. Sudbury: Jones and Bartlett. Read More