PRINCIPLES IN HEALTH EDUCATION
PHPE 210 Health education is the combination of planned social
INTRODUCTION TO HEALTH EDUCATION AND HEALTH
PROMOTION
HEALTH EDUCATION
The process of bringing about behavioral changes in
individuals, groups and larger population from behaviors
that are presumed to be detrimental to health, to behaviors
that are conducive to present and future health
The process of assisting individuals, acting separately or
collectively, to make informed decisions about matters
affecting the personal health and that of others
CATEGORIES OF HEALTH BEHAVIOR
Preventive health behavior: to be healthy for the purpose
of preventing or detecting illness in an asymptomatic state
Illness behavioractivity undertaken by an individual who
perceives himself to be ill
Sick role behavioractivity undertaken by an individual
considered himself to be ill for the purpose of getting well
FOUNDATIONS OF HEALTH EDUCATION
Philosophical Foundation
o Reason/ why
o For proper guidance of their work
Biomedical Foundation
o Content or the what of health education programs
Behavioral Science Foundation
o How
o Theories or methods of bringing about behavioral
change
OTTAWA CHARTERS DEFINITION OF HEALTH
PROMOTION
Health promotion works through concrete and effective
community action in setting priorities, making decisions,
planning strategies and implementing them to achieve
better health
Strategies
Develop personal skill
Create supportive environment
Community involvement
Re-orient health services
Build supportive public policies
WHOS PRINCIPLES OF HEALTH PROMOTION
Involves the population as a whole
Directed towards action on the determinants or cause of
health
Combines diverse, but complementary methods or
approaches
Aims at effective and concrete public participation
Primarily a societal and political venture and not a medical
service
SUNDVALL CONFERENCE
Key Strategies to create supportive environments
o Strengthening advocacy through community action
o Enabling communities and individuals to take control
over their health and environment through education
and empowerment
o Building alliances
o Mediating between conflicting interests in society
actions and learning experiences designed to enable
people to gain control over the determinants of health and
health behaviors
Health education is an interactive process in which the
target populations are active participants
Members of the target population must be involved in the
planning process
Good health education planning is based on the assumption
that an intervention strategy should be uniquely tailored to
address the circumstances of a given population, person,
and situation
Understand current health challenges and also anticipate
the emerging challenges of the future
Must be planned by people from all sectors and levels of
society
Exposure to an appropriately planned health education
program yields results
Health education has been successful only where there is
financial, political and management support, specific
targets, careful planning, monitoring/evaluating,
intersectoral collaboration, application of multiple theories
and methods, participant involvement and qualified
personnel
Three principal strategiesadvocacy, empowerment, and
social support
BIOMEDICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE FOUNDATIONS OF
HELATH PROMOTION AND HEALTH EDUCATION
Assumptions of Biomedical Models
o Definition of disease as deviation from normal biologic
functioning
o Doctrine of specific etiology
o Conception of generic diseases: universality of disease
taxonomy
o Scientific neutrality of medicine
The biomedical model reduces illness to low level processes
such as disordered cells, and chemical imbalances
The biomedical foundations provide the WHAT/content in
our health promotion efforts, while the social sciences
shows us the HOW, the METHOD, or Process
Four hierarchical process of the view of health, disease,
wellness, and illness
1. Biological Body
2. Person
3. Family, ones friends and communities
4. Roles, society
SOCIAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION OF HEALTH PROMOTION
AND EDUCATION
Socio-economic and cultural factors
Psychological Factors
o Learning process
o Communication process
o Change process
o Strategies and interventions to bring about change
LEARNING PROCESS
ELEMENTS OF LEARNING
Goal
Readiness
Situation
Interpretation
Response
Consequence
Reaction to Thwarting
LEARNING THEORIES
1. Behaviorist Theories
Pavlovs Classical Conditioning
o Pairing of an unconditioned stimulus with a stimulus to
be considered.
o Conditioned stimulus then elicits a conditioned response
Thorndikes Law of Exercise and Law of Effect
o Learning not just as a simple stimulus-response
connection but a series of connections
o Law of Exercise
The more frequent the stimulus-response connection
is used, the stronger the associations will become
and vice-versa
o Law of Effect
Stimulus-reaction connection is strengthened when a
positive feedback follows it and vice versa
Operant Conditioning
o Learning takes place when certain acts/operation are
associated with reinforcement
o For optimum conditioning to take place, it is important
that the response be immediately followed by
reinforcement
Reinforcement- anything that strengthens the chance
of an operant response recurring
o Positive Reinforcement
Behavior is followed by pleasant stimulus
o Negative Reinforcement
Behavior is followed by removal of an unpleasant
stimulus
2. Cognitive Theories
Views learning as a reorganization of a number of
perceptions percolating in the mind of the learner
Deals with processes involved in the creation of responses
and development of insights
Tolmans Cognitive Mapping
o Learning is goal-directed and needs a semblance of
structure
3. Humanist Theories