Health Education Essay

INTRODUCTION:

Health is everyone’s concern. It is also important component of human resources development. Health goes hand in hand with social- economic development. The health for all strategy calls for concerted action in all sectors and demands coordinated efforts to enlist active people’s participation in the process of health management. Health education is a fundamental necessity in a welfare state. People need health education consistently.

CONCEPT OF HEALTH:

According to Goetz Philip, the term health comprises the state of complete physical, mental and social well- being and not merely absence of any disease or infirmity. Health is earned by the people through conscious, planned and sustainable efforts all through the life. Ruslink

Health education is indispensable in achieving individual and collective health. There is no single acceptable definition of health education, which is normally perceived as an instrument of changing attitudes and behavioral patterns of people towards attaining better health status through adoption of health innovations, and practices, which are tested and tried. Health education is the translation of what is known about health into desirable individual and community behaviour patterns by means of an educational process.

SCOPE OF HEALTH EDUCATION: The scope of health education covers every aspect of individual health, family health and mental health, prevention of accidents and so on.

DEFINITIONS OF HEALTH EDUCATION

John M Last defines, “the process by which individuals and groups of people learn to behave in a manner conducive to the promotion, maintenance or restoration of

Good health education is based on facts, which means it must be consistent and compatible with scientific knowledge and also with local culture, educational system and social goals.

2) INTEREST: It is psychological principle that people are unlikely to listen to those things, which are not to their interest. Health educators must find out real health needs of the people. If a health program is based on the felt needs, people will participate willingly in the program. Very often, there are groups who may have health needs of which they are not aware. The health educator should recognize the needs before he/she proceeds to overcome them.

3) PARTICIPATION: I t is based on the psychological principle of active learning. Health education should aim at encouraging people to work actively with health workers and others in identifying their own health problems and also in developing solution and plans to work them out. Participation of family members in patient care will create opportunity for more effective, practically based health education. A high degree of participation creates a sense of involvement, personal acceptance and decision making.