Health Education


What is health education and why is it so important?

Health Education is a social science which takes aspects of medical, psychological, physical biological and environmental sciences and is aimed to encourage health, prevent illnesses, diseases and early deaths.  This is all done throught educating people on how to change their behavior and activities for promoting health.  Health education can be targeted towards individuals, groups, or communities by increasing their knowledge of health, behavior and health skills.  The overall goal of health education is to pursuade people and communities to have healthier behavior and lifestyles as well as improving their living conditions and surroundings which also effect their health in general.

 

Health Education is so important because it:

  • helps improve the quality of life for all human beings
  • helps prevent and reduce the number of unnecessary early deaths
  • helps improve overall health condition on the individual, group, and community level, thus improving the overall health status of each state and the country as a whole
  • provides knowledge and information which helps reduce the costs that , employers, families, individuals, medical facilities, insurance companies, communities, the state, and the nation will have spend on medical care.

 

Like any other field of science, health education calls for in depth study.  Most colleges in the United States offer health eduaction programs for both undergraduate and graduate students.  Therefore, schools, colleges and universities would be the best way to find health educators and would probably be the number one employer of health educators.  However, there are other places where you can find or become employed as a health educator.  Most businesses and industries will have health educators avalailable to hold education services and provide health counseling for employees and workers.  These types of services can often include health screenings and employee health risk appraisals.  These educators address issues like smoking, weight control, drug abuse, stress, or anything that can prevent a healthy enviornment for a workplace.  They also help assure that companies are meeting standard health and safety regulations.  Health educators can also be found in government agencies, community organizations and health care (hospital/health clinic) settings.

 

A trained health educator should be able to:

  • plan, create, develop, and manage health education services and programs
  • write grants to start health education programs and services
  • promote health education programs through marketing and mass media
  • develop coaitions by organizing the masses to promote health and health eduaction services
  • write articles on health and health issues
  • promote healthy activity and behavior on the individual, group and community level
  • promote healthy living conditions and surroundings for individuals, groups and communities

 

Public Health

 

The field of public health is a variation of health education.  Public health focuses on entire populations rather than individuals.  The same tactics are invloved like promoting healthy living and preventing threats to overall health such as disease and injury.  Public health experts will reseach the effects that healthly living will have on genetics, the environment and personal decisions so that programs and services can be created to protect the health of communities and populations.  Public health is concerned with populations ranging from small local communities to enitre nations.  Unlike doctors or nurses who mainly work to treat un-healthy situations, public health professionals work to prevent these situations through research, developing health education programs creating policies, etc.  Another goal of public health is to reduce disparities in health among populations.  This is mainly done through fighting for easier access and availability for health care to all people. 

 

In order to become a public health professional it is essential to become educated in the following areas:

  • Nutrition
  • biostatistics
  • behavioral science
  • administration and management of health services
  • global health
  • epidemiology
  • child health
  • environmental health

 

Public health is becoming an exciting new career opportunity for several reasons.  Many experts are starting to say that many of the future advances in improving health are more likely to result from an increase in community based health and prevention programs rather than medical discoveries and cures.  Over the past few years, there has been a heavy emphasis on health promotion and prevention programs in order improve the overall health of populations.  If populations are healthier, the demand for health care will go down, and thus the costs of health care will decrease.  Changes in philosophy such as these has created a new demand for more people with advanced training in public health.  Much concern has also been manifested over the past decade on environmental problems as a major threat to population based health such as pollutants and toxic waste.  This has caused a greater demand for experts in environmental health which is now a vital part of the public health field.

For those of you looking to pursue a career in health education or public health, we strongly recommend that you refer to our links above.  These links provide some of the best health education programs, credentialists and schools around.  Take it from us and start here. You won't be disappointed!