Health Education Perspective

Prepared by:
Joan O. Ranada, RN, MAN
Lecturer
What is health education?

 To public health administrator, health

education is a means to carry out
effectively his public health program.
 To the individual, it is a means toward
more effective living and to a more
healthful way of life.
 To some physicians, health education is a
means by which better understanding of
the principles of healthful living is
achieved.
 To nurses, health education is a means of
improving the health of people by
employing various methods of scientific
procedures to show the most healthful
ways of living.
 Health education is a compound word-
health and education.
 Health (Dubois) is the expression of the
success experienced by the organism in
its effort to respond adaptively to
environmental changes.
 Education (Whitehead) is the acquisition of
the art of the utilization of knowledge.
 Health education is a process whereby
learning situation are created with and for
people so that they may change favorably
their health habits attitudes, and
knowledge for the improvement of their
personal, family and community health.
Objectives of Health Education

 Health education aims to develop ways

and means of affecting favorable changes
in health habits and attitude of the people.
Other objectives of Health Education

 To help people gain purposeful

experience, knowledge, understanding,
habits, attitudes and ideals that will help
them to live healthfully as an individual
and as a member of the community.
 To make people realize the importance of
practicing correct health habits such as
living in a clean environment, well
ventilated houses, taking regular exercise,
eating the right kind of food and using
sanitary facilities like toilets, etc.; having a
regular health examination, using health
department facilities, and others.
 To create favorable public opinion towards
active support of health department and to
instill confidence and loyalty in health
institution.
 To enable taxpayers to understand that
public health cost money by giving them
opportunities to help plan for public health
services.
 To acquaint the public with the activities of
various bureaus of our health department.
 To stimulate each individual to accept and
use the services of its health department
by participating in the planning and
execution of the program itself.
 To bring health workers, educators, and
laymen together so that each will
understand the other and so that they will
learn to work as a unit towards common
goal-positive health for all people.
Primary Purposes of Health Education (WHO Expert
Committee on Health Education)

1. To help individuals to become competent

in and to carry on those activities they
must undertake for themselves, as
individuals or in small groups, in order to
realize fully the state of health as stated
in the constitution of the WHO.
2. To make health a valued community
asset.
3. To promote the development and proper
use of health services.
The degree to which goals can be achieved is
determined by a series of interrelated factors:

a. The accessibility of health advice and

health services in which the individuals
have thrust.
b. The economic feasibility of putting into
practice the health measures being
advocated.
c. The acceptability of the proposed health
practices in terms of customs and
traditions that the individuals, families
and groups observe, the beliefs that they
hold and the attitudes of their peers.
d. The extent of which people have the kinds
of learning experience needed to enable
them to understand or to desire the
benefits to be derived from a new or
modified health behavior, which may often
require a considerable personal sacrifice
of a financial, social or psychological
nature.
 It is important that the health worker have
certain understanding of people and the
community in order to bring about
desirable “changed” behavior.
Public Health Workers must know the
following:
1. An understanding of the culture, or way
of life of people including beliefs,
superstitions, traditions, value systems,
religious practices, etc.
2. Knowledge of the leaders and leadership
patterns in the community.
3. Knowledge of the problems that people
recognize and have an interest in doing
something about.
4. Knowledge of the socio-economic level of
the people.
5. Knowledge of the channels of
communication in which the people have
confidence.
6. Knowledge of the community resources
whether human, natural, financial,
institutional and/or technical.
7. An understanding of past experiences of
people with respect to health and illness
and with public health workers and other
indigenous workers like hilots, quacks,
etc.
8. An understanding of the motivations of
people-why they do things they do.
9. An understanding of the principles of
learning and the barriers to learning.
10. Knowledge of educational methods and
media and their effectiveness.
Historical Development in Health
Education
“Health education is an art. As an art, it draws
upon the scientific knowledge amassed in the
pursuit of numerous sciences. These sciences
are medicine and its allied sciences– biology,
psychology, and social sciences and many
practical arts. The analysis (science) and the
synthesis (Philosophy) of this knowledge
constitute the material out of which health
education of the individual and the community
emerges.”
 The origin of Health Education is as old as
mankind.
Greeks

 Hygeia-health
 Hippocratic Corpus-some70 books on
medicine
 Aphorisms- purview and experience of the
common man
 Regimen in health-2,000 words, an outline
for eating and drinking
 Child care
Romans

 Cato the Censor (BC 234-149) with

knowledge of medicine
 Cornelius Celsus- pharmacopeia
 Claudius Galen’s- Hygiea
 Baths
Middle Ages or Dark Ages

 Man’s preoccupation was the salvation of

soul rather than health for his body
 Literature gave rise to Salernitan Regimen
of Health
Renaissance (1500-1750)

 Characterized by a great scientific outburst

and gradual release from traditionalism.
 Bacon and Descarte contributed to lay the
foundation for health education
 Versalious, Harvey, Fracastoso etc.-used
experimental method.
 Invention of Printing
Enlightenment and Reason (1750-1830)

 Saw an extension of the scientific

advances of the previous century.
3 Groups influenced the health education
movement at this time:
1. Legislators and social workers as Howard,
Pestalozzi and Florence Nightingale who
created, promoted and enforced new social
and public health laws.
2. Medical man such as Jenner, Snow, Frank,
Chodwick, Pasteur, Lister and Koch who
discovered new methods of disease
prevention, created preventive medicine and
applied and spread the knowledge of new
public health measures.
3. Writers such as Rosseau, Voltaire,
Dickens, Hugo, Stowe who potrayed social
conditions and aroused public opinion and
created a demand for legislation.
18th Century

 Saw endeavor to project hygiene from a

personal to a public plane.
 Howard aroused public opinion that could
be lever for social reform.
19th Century

 Purpose was powered by self-interest as

the truths about cholera and
industrialization were grasped.
 Poor could no longer suffer alone.
 Of knowledge, it leaped forward from the
darkness of middle ages to scientific
outlook of the modern world.
 Sanitary reform movement best illustrates how
health education has included the concept of
arousing informed public opinion in support of
legislative action for improved public health.
 In 1914, New York City health Department
organized the first bureau for health education in
an official agency.
 Creation of New York City Health Department
20th Century

 Health education movement gained full

impetus in the United States.
 1918, Child Health Organization was
formed.
 In 1938, Health Education became a
profession.
Health Education in the Philippines

a. Mythical Period- characterized by a

fatalistic attitude to disease, Bathala was
the Supreme Being.
b. The Superstitious Period- epidemics
were considered as scourges from
heaven, and people believed in “anting-
anting”
c. The Empirical Period-men used
medicinal plants and gave birth to
“herbolarios”
d. Scientific Period- During Spanish time,
the hospital was a medium for health
education.
American Contribution

 Health education was integrated in the

Public School System.
 Health Educators became member of
public health team.
Issues and Trends in Health Education

1. Firstly, education for health occurs in

various levels, individual and group.
2. Secondly, education for health has for a
long time been highly rationalistic.
3. Finally, it is clear trends in the current
health education scene reflect
development and ongoing changes in the
society . Now the trend in many countries
is community development.
Theories in health education

 Pender’s Health Promotion Model

 Bandura’s Self Efficacy Theory
 Health Belief Model
 Green’s Preceed-Proceed Model
Pender’s Health Promotion Theory
 The health promotion model (HPM) proposed by
Nola J Pender (1982; revised, 1996) was
designed to be a “complementary counterpart to
models of health protection.”
 It defines health as a positive dynamic state not
merely the absence of disease. Health
promotion is directed at increasing a client’s
level of well being.
 The health promotion model describes the multi
dimensional nature of persons as they interact
within their environment to pursue health.
Bandura’s Self Efficacy Theory

 Self-efficacy is a term used in

psychology, roughly corresponding to a
person's belief in their own competence.
 It has been defined as the belief that one
is capable of performing in a certain
manner to attain certain goals.
Health Belief Model

 The Health Belief Model (HBM) is a

psychological model that attempts to
explain and predict health behaviors.
 This is done by focusing on the attitudes
and beliefs of individuals.
 The HBM was first developed in the 1950s
by social psychologists Hochbaum,
Rosenstock and Kegels working in the
U.S. Public Health Services.
Green’s Preceed-Proceed Model

 A model of community health promotion

planning and evaluation.
 Composed of Predisposing, Reinforcing,
and Enabling Factors.
End of Presentation