Session 2

Dr. Amani Romman

Introduction to Health
Education
 Content
• Introduction
• Definition of health education.
• Concept of well being , Health literacy , Health
promotion.
• Aims and objectives of health education
• Principles of health education
• Approaches to health education
• Practice of health education
• Roles of health educators
• Contents of health education
 Introduction

Health education forms an important part

of the health promotion activities.
These activities occur in schools,
workplaces, clinics and communities and
include topics such as healthy eating, physical
activity, tobacco use prevention, mental
health, HIV/AIDS prevention and safety.
 Introduction

• Health education involve education ,

motivation, skill-building and consciousness-
raising techniques leads to building
individuals’ capacities
• Healthy public policies provide the
environmental supports lead to encourage and
enhance behaviour change.
• By influencing both, brings about meaningful
and sustained change in the health of
individuals and communities can occur.
 Health Education
“Health education is the process by which
individuals and group of people learn to:

 Promote, Maintain, Restore health

 Address risks
 prevent disease/injury
 Health Education

Health education has been used interchangeably

with
•Behavior change communication
•Information, Education & Communication
(IEC)
 Behavior Change Communication

• Is a process of working with individuals,

families and communities through different
communication channels to promote positive
health behaviors and support an environment
that enables the community to maintain positive
behaviors taken on.
Information Education and Communication

• Information: A collection of useful briefs or

detailed ideas, processes, data and theories that can
be used for a certain period of time.
• Education: A complex and planned learning
experiences that aims to bring about changes in
cognitive (knowledge), affective (attitude, belief,
value) and psychomotor (skill) domains of
behavior.
• Communication: the process of sharing ideas,
information, knowledge, and experience among
people using different channels.
 Health Education

• Knowledge: An intellectual acquaintance with facts,

truth, or principles gained by sight, experience, or
report.

• Attitude: Manner, disposition, feeling, or position

toward a person or thing.

• Skills : The ability to do something well, arising from

talent, training, or practice.
 Health Education

• Belief : Acceptance of or confidence in an alleged

fact or body of facts as true or right without positive
knowledge or proof; a perceived truth.

• Values: Ideas, ideals, customs that arouse

an emotional response for or against them.
 Health Education

• Health education is any combination of

learning experiences designed to help
individuals and communities improve their
health, by increasing their knowledge or
influencing their attitudes. (WHO)
 Health Education

• Lawrence Green defined it as “a combination of

learning experiences designed to facilitate
voluntary actions conducive to health.”
• The terms “combination, designed, facilitate and
voluntary action” have significant implications in
this definition.
 Health Education
• Combination: emphasizes the importance of matching the
multiple determinants of behavior with multiple learning
experiences or educational interventions.
• Designed: distinguishes health education from incidental
learning experiences as systematically planned activity.
• Facilitate: means create favorable conditions for action.
• Voluntary action: means behavioral measures are
undertaken by an individual, group or community to
achieve an intended health effect with out the use of force,
i.e., with full understanding and acceptance of purposes.
 Health Education
Education for health begins with people
as they are, with whatever interests they
may have in improving their living
conditions to keep well being state.
 Concept of well-being

“the state of being comfortable, healthy, or

happy”
Has Subjective and Objective components
 Objective component of well-being
Nine components:
Health
Occupation and
Food
working
consumption
conditions

Education Level Housing

of
living
Leisure and Social
human rights security

Recreation Clothing
Subjective component of wellbeing
Quality of life

 A composite measure of physical, mental and social

wellbeing as perceived by each individual
 Evaluated by:
Assessing a person's subjective feelings of
happiness or unhappiness about the various life
concerns
 Improvement of quality of life means increased
emphasis on social policy and on reformulation of
societal goals to make life more leviable for all.
 Health literacy

“The degree to which people are able to

access, understand, appraise and communicate
information to engage with the demands of
different health contexts in order to promote and
maintain good health across the life course.”
(WHO)
 Health promotion
• Health promotion is the process of enabling
people to increase control over, and to
improve their health.
• A planned combination of educational,
political, regulatory, and organizational
supports for actions and conditions of
living conducive to the health of
individuals, groups, or communities.
Keywords- planned, different supports,
healthy environment
 Health promotion
• A commitment to dealing with challenges
of :
• Reducing inequities.
• Extending the scope of prevention,
• Helping people to cope with their
circumstances.
• Creating environments conducive to health, in
which people are better able to take care of
themselves in different settings- school,
workplace, etc
• Is there a difference between health education
and health promotion?
Health education: learner directed
Health promotion: broader concept directed
toward :
• advocating health Individual and community
education
• Environmental change
• Policy changes
• Economic changes
• Shifts in societal norms
Health promotion model
Health promotion model
Relationship between major health concepts
 Aims and Objectives of H.E.
(a) To encourage people to adopt and sustain health
promoting life style and practices
(b) To promote the proper use of the health services
available to them
(c) To arouse interest to provide new knowledge
,improve skills and change attitudes in making rational
decisions to solve their own problems
(d) To stimulate individual and community self reliance
and participation to achieve health development
through individual and community involvement at every
step from identifying problems to solving them.
 Basic Principles of H.E.

• All health education should be need

based.
Therefore before involving any individual,
group or the community in health education
with a particular purpose or for a program the
need should be ascertained. It has to be also
specific and relevant to the problems and
available solutions.
 Basic Principles of H.E.

• Health education aims at change of

behavior.
Therefore multidisciplinary approach is
necessary for understanding of human
behavior as well as for effective teaching
process.
 Basic Principles of H.E.

• It is necessary to have a free flow of

communication.
The two way communication is particularly of
importance in health education to help in
getting proper feedback and get doubt
cleared.
 Basic Principles of H.E.

• The health educator has to adjust his talk

and action to suit the group for whom he
has to give health education.
E.g. when the health educator has to deal with
illiterates and poor people, he has to get down
to their level of conversation and human
relationships so as to reduce any social
distance.
 Basic Principles of H.E.
• Health Education should provide an
opportunity for the clients to go through
the stages of identification of problems,
planning, implementation and evaluation.
This is of special importance in the health
education of the community where the
identification of problems and planning,
implementing and evaluating are to be done
with full involvement of the community to make
it the community’s own program.
 Basic Principles of H.E.

• Health Education is based on scientific

findings and current knowledge.
Therefore a health educator should have
recent scientific knowledge to provide health
education.
 Basic Principles of H.E.

• The health educators have to make

themselves acceptable.
They should realize that they are enablers
and not teachers. They have to win the
confidence of clients.
 Basic Principles of H.E.

• The health educators should not only

have correct information with them on all
matters that they have to discuss but also
should themselves practice what they
profess.
Otherwise, they will not enjoy credibility.
 Basic Principles of H.E.
• It must be remembered that people are
not absolutely without any information
or ideas.
The health educators are not merely passing
information but also give an opportunity for
the clients to analyze fresh ideas with old
ideas, compare with past experience and take
decisions that are found favorable and
beneficial.
 Basic Principles of H.E.
• The grave danger with health education
programs is the pumping of all bulk of
information in one exposure or
enthusiasm to give all possible
information.
Since it is essentially a learning process, the
process of education should be done step-by-
step and with due attention to the different
principles of communication.
 Basic Principles of H.E.

• The health educator should use terms

that can be immediately understood.
Highly scientific jargon should be avoided.
 Basic Principles of H.E.
• Health Education should start from the
existing indigenous knowledge and efforts
should aim at small changes in a graded
fashion and not be too ambitious.
People will learn step by step and not
everything together. For every change of
behavior, a personal trail is required and
therefore the health education should provide
opportunities for trying out changed
practices.
Approaches in health education

1. Regulatory Approach(Managed
Prevention)
2. Service Approach
3. Educational Approach
4. Primary health care Approach
Legal or Regulatory Approach
• Any governmental intervention, direct or
indirect, designed to alter human
behavior.
• E.g.: Seat belts rule in cars .
• Advantages: Simple , Quick
Particularly , be useful in times of emergency
or in limited situations such as control of an
epidemic disease or management of fairs and
festivals
Legal or Regulatory Approach

Limitations :
• In area of personal choice (alcohol ,
exercise etc.) no govt. can take away their
right of freedom
• Difficult to enforce laws without a vast
administrative infrastructure and
considerable expenditure.
 Service Approach
• Intends to provide all the health facilities
needed by the people at their door steps on the
assumption that people would use them to
improve their own health.
• Limitation :not based on the felt-needs of
people
we may provide free service to the people, but
there is no guarantee that the service will be
used by them.
 Educational Approach
• Most effective
• Gives autonomy towards their own lives
• Components :
1.motivation
2.communication
3.decision making

• results slow , but permanent and enduring.

• Sufficient time for an individual to bring about changes
and learning new facts as well as unlearning wrong
information as well.
 Primary health care approach

• Radically new approach starting from the people

with their full participation and active
involvement in the planning and delivery of
health services based on principals of art health
care via community involvement and inter-
sectoral coordination
• Individuals helped to become self-reliant in
matters of health
 Primary health care approach

• It can be done if the people receive the

necessary guidance from health care providers
in identifying their health problems and
finding workable solutions.
• This approach is a fundamental shift from the
earlier approaches.
 Approaches in health education
 Since individuals vary so much in their socio-
economic conditions, traditions, attitudes,
beliefs and level of knowledge

 A single approach may not be suitable.

 Combination of approaches must be

evolved depending upon local

circumstances
 Targets for health education

• Individuals: such as clients of services,

patients, healthy individuals

• Groups: E.g. groups of students in a class,

youth club

• Community :E.g. people living in a village

 Who is responsible for health
education?
• Health education is the duty of everyone engaged in
health and community development activities.
Health Extension Workers are primarily responsible
in working with the families and community at a grass
root level to promote health and prevent disease
through provision of health education.
If health and other workers are not practicing
health education in their daily work, they are not
doing their job correctly.
 Role of health educator
• Talking to the people and listening of their
problems
• Thinking of the behavior or action that could
cause, cure and prevent these problems.
• Finding reasons for people’s behaviors
• Helping people to see the reasons for their
actions and health problems.
 Role of health educator

• Asking people to give their own ideas for

solving the problems.
• Helping people to look as their ideas so that
they could see which were the most useful
and the simplest to put into practice.
• Encouraging people to choose the idea best
suited to their circumstances.
 Contents of health education
• Human Biology: The effects of alcohol, smoking,
resuscitation and first aid are also taught.
• Nutrition: Eighth WHO Expert Committee on
nutrition stated that education in nutrition is a
major strategic method for the prevention of
malnutrition.
• Hygiene: PERSONAL HYGIENE includes
bathing, clothing, washing hands and toilet; care
of feet, nails and teeth; spitting, coughing,
sneezing, personal appearance and inculcation of
clean habits in the young.
 Contents of health education

• Environmental hygiene:
• Objectives
(a) to educate the people in the principles of
environmental health with a view to bring about
desired changes in health practices
(b) to secure adoption, wide use and
maintenance of environmental health facilities,
and
 Contents of health education
(c) to promote active participation of the
people in planning, construction and
operational stages of environmental
improvements.
• Family Health Care The aim of health
education is to strengthen and improve the
quality of life of the family as a unit so that
it can survive the vicissitudes of rapid and
complex social changes.
 Contents of health education

Control of Communicable and Non -

communicable Diseases:
• People are encouraged to participate in
programs of disease control, health
protection and promotion.
• Mental healthThe aim of education in
mental health is to help people to keep
mentally healthy and to prevent a mental
breakdown
 Contents of health education
• Prevention of Accidents:
• occur in three main areas: the home, road and the
place of work.
• Safety education should be directed to these
areas.
• It should be the concern of the engineering
department and also the responsibility of the
police department to enforce rules of road safety.
• Management must provide a safe environment,
and promote general order and cleanliness.
 Contents of health education

• Use of Health Services

• inform the public about the health
services that are available in the
community, and how to use them.
• They should not be misused or abused