In essence education for health is all about developing people’s interest in improving their condition of life. The main purpose of health education is to induce a sense of responsibility about health condition among individuals, and as a part of family and community.
In a simple way, health education can be defined as a process in which individuals and groups of people acquire knowledge on the right approach for promoting, maintaining and restoring their health.
However, in case of controlling communicable diseases, health education would usually include an assessment of what the population knows about a disease, scrutinizing the habits and attitudes of the people with respect to the spread and frequency of the disease, and a sort of presentation that has a specific way to amend the deficiencies observed.
Curriculum of health education
In most of the schools, health education is a part of the curriculum. In United States there are around forty states in which education on health is needed. In schools it commonly cover certain aspects such as emotional health and building positive self image; regard and care of the human body and the valuable organs; issues related to alcohol, tobacco and drug use and abuse; nutrition and weight control; misconceptions about health and quackery; physical fitness; effects of exercise on the body systems and on general well being etc.
Anyway a health education curriculum would be comprehensive only through planned learning experiences and it should be easily understandable for the students. It should also teach them attitudes and practices related to critical health issues.
What are programs for health education?
Several schools and colleges offer health education certificates and degrees. There are also specialized programs that are exclusively devoted to professionals engaged in health-related fields. Such programs provide a broad range of subjects associated with health issues. The Health Education Certificate Schools require the students to learn health issues and utilize the programs for change.
In the certificate program, students are supplied courses in social sciences and behavioral theories of health education. This lets the students acquire the ability to construct theoretical analyses of social health problems and to draw an effective remedy. It will also help to appraise social conditions, build programs so as to resolve the issues, and enforce programs to bring social change.
Most of the health education courses in schools and colleges are meant master degree levels. These courses enhance the students in applied research, professional aptitudes in theory, and applied practice in fields of health.
A certificate or degree courses in health education grooms the students so that they can work with individuals, families and community organizations. On the other hand in Master-level studies of this subject, students are trained to recognize the problems, techniques for intervention, and ways of controlling health-related situations.