Health Education and

Promotion
Course code: PHL2205

Facilitators
Ms. Akello Anne Ruth
Mr. Kigongo Eustes
 Course outline
1. Introduction to health education and promotion
2. Behaviour change communication and application
3. Health education methods and materials.
4. Health promotion practices, health promotion models/theories.
5. Explanation of Ottawa Charter and Jakarta Charter.
6. Settings for health promotion, mass media and advocacy in health promotion.
7. Designing comprehensive School health education programme, Health education for
children outside School.
8. Field practice in communities and Schools.
 Introduction to health education and
promotion
 By the end of this lecture, all learners must be able to:
 Define key terms used in Health education and promotion
 Explain the principles of health education and health promotion
 Explain the concept of best practice in health promotion
 Definitions - Health
 Health is defined in the WHO constitution of 1948 as, “A state of
complete physical, social and mental well-being of a person, and not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
 Health is a resource for everyday life, not the object of living. It is a
positive concept emphasizing availability/access to social and
personal resources as well as physical capabilities.
 Definitions – Health education
 Health education refers to a combination of planned learning
experiences based on sound theories that provide individuals, groups
and communities the opportunity to acquire information and the
skills to make quality health decisions.
 Definitions- Health educator
 A health educator is a professionally prepared individual who serves
in a variety of roles and is specifically trained to use appropriate
educational strategies and methods to facilitate the development of
policies, procedures, interventions and systems conducive to the
health of individuals, groups and communities.
 Health education is the process by which individuals and group of
people learn to promote, maintain and restore health.
 Health education cont’d
 According to the WHO, health education is the process of providing
information and advice related to healthy lifestyle and encouraging
the development of knowledge, attitudes and skills aimed at
behaviour change of individuals or communities.
 Health education enables and influences control over own´s health
leading to optimalization of attitudes and habits related to lifestyle
and increasing quality of life.
 Health education cont’d
 Health education involves educating people to have healthier
lifestyles so they can AVOID disease.
 Health Education aims to:
-inform people through knowledge
-change unhealthy attitudes
-change unhealthy behaviours
 Its REALLY difficult to get people to change their attitudes and
behaviour!
 Health promotion
 The process of enabling people to increase control over and improve
their health.
 Can be defined as a planned combination of educational, political,
regulatory, and organizational supports for actions and conditions of
living conducive to the health of individuals, groups, or communities.
 Green & Kreuter, 1999
 Health promotion cont’d
 A commitment to dealing with challenges of reducing inequities,
extending the scope of prevention, and helping people to cope with
their circumstances.
 Creating environments conducive to health, in which people are
better able to take care of themselves.
 Health promotion cont’d
 Health education forms an important part of the health promotion
activities.
 These activities occur in schools, workplaces, clinics and communities
and include topics such as healthy eating, physical activity, tobacco
use prevention, mental health, HIV/AIDS prevention and safety.
 Basic characteristics of health promotion
 Enabling people to take control over, and responsibility for, their
health as an important component of everyday life.
 Requiring the close cooperation of sectors beyond the health services.
 Combining diverse, but complimentary, methods or approaches.
 Encouraging effective and concrete public participation.
 Principles of health promotion
1. Empowerment - a way of working that enables people to gain
greater control over decisions and actions affecting their health.
2. Participative - where people take an active part in decision making.
3. Holistic - taking account of the separate influences on health and the
interaction of these dimensions with each other.
4. Equitable - ensuring fairness of outcomes for service users (all
categories of people should be planned for and reached by the health
promotion activities).
 Principles of HP cont’d
5. Inter-sectoral collaboration - working in partnership with other
relevant agencies/organizations with a stake in the health of
communities.
6. Sustainable - ensuring that the outcomes of health promotion
activities are maintained in the long term.
7. Multi-strategy - working on a number of strategic areas concurrently
and not just one, including programmes, policy, etc.
 Purpose/aims of health education
 Health education is aimed at achieving the following:
1. To ensure that health is an asset in the community.
2. To equip the people with skills, knowledge and attitude.
3. To promote the development and proper use of health services.
 Principles of health education
 Any health education activity should be built on the following
principles:
1. Interest- is a psychological principle that people are unlikely to listen
to and adopt those things which are not to their interest.
2. Participation- It should aim at encouraging people to work actively
with health workers and other stake holders in identifying their own
health problems, developing solutions, as well as plans to execute the
solutions.
 Principles of HE cont’d
3. Known to unknown- start where the people are and with what they
understand and then proceed to new knowledge.
4. Comprehension- In Health Education, we must know the level of
understanding, education and literacy of people to whom the teaching
is directed.
5. Re-enforcement- Repetition at intervals is extremely useful for
understanding all the new information.
6. Motivation- Every individual has a fundamental desire to learn.
Stimulation or awakening of desire of learning is called motivation.
 Principles of HE cont’d
7. Communication barriers- Health educators must be aware of the
various barriers to communication and cultural background of the
community.
8. Learning by doing- arising from the Chinese proverb “if I hear, I
forget. If I see, I remember. If I do, I know”. Always remember to
illustrate the importance of learning by doing.
9. Good Human Relationship- the health educators should always aim
at making friendship with community members so they see them as
their own and listen/adopt the health messages being provided to
them.
 The concept of best practices in health
promotion
 Best practices in health promotion is the set or sets of continually
evolving actions and associated attitudes which are most likely to
achieve health promotion goals in a given situation, and which are
consistent with the values of health promotion.
 Benefits and risks of best practices in health
promotion
 The WHO felt that an adoption of a best practices approach has the
potential for both benefits and risks.
 At its best, a best practices approach could result in improved
processes and outcomes, and greater credibility for health promotion.
 At its worst, a best practices approach might mean severe restrictions
to health promotion activities, depending on who is defining best
practices.
 Best practices approach cont’d
 The benefits include:
1. Achievement of health promotion goals.
2. Increased accountability.
3. Increased awareness and critical thought.
4. Enhanced learning.
 Best practices approach cont’d
 Risks include:
1. Reduced creativity.
2. An excuse to cut costs.
3. Lowered tolerance for longer time-lines in health promotion.
4. Reduced client-centeredness.
 Factors that shape health promotion best
practices
1. Health promotion values: Best Practices in health promotion are
based upon core values, including equity and empowerment. These
values guide all aspects of health promotion practice.
2. Health promotion processes: Best Practices in health promotion use
processes that are consistent with health promotion values, and are
appropriate to achieving health promotion goals and outcomes.
3. Current and new knowledge: Best Practices in health promotion
build upon and enhance knowledge regarding the appropriateness
and effectiveness of health promotion.
 Factors cont’d
4. Available resources: Best Practices in health promotion make
effective use of available resources in achieving the goals of health
promotion.
5. Theoretical understanding of health and its determinants: Best
Practices in health promotion both reflect and contribute to a
theoretical understanding of health.
6. Sensitivity to power: Best Practices in health promotion are aware of
and sensitive to issues of power and strive to increase shared power.
7. Sensitivity to diversity: Best Practices in health promotion recognize,
respect and include diversity in all its forms.
 Challenges to operationalizing best
practices in health promotion
1. Lack of political support.
2. Negative impact of power issues in organizations.
3. Negative impact of agenda of larger structures.
4. Top- down approach of population health.
5. Lack of financial and human resources.
6. Lack of solid evidence regarding effectiveness.
7. Need to convince others regarding effectiveness.
8. Not enough time to demonstrate effectiveness.
 Identification of best practices
 The WHO and its partners went through an exercise which resulted in
the embryo development of criteria to identify best practices in
health promotion.
 Although the list and process varied somewhat from one partner to
another, most of them agreed on the following important criteria to
be used for judging whether or not a particular project is following
the best practices approach:
1. Incorporation of health promotion values.
2. Existence of supporting evidence.
3. Emphasis on positive outcomes.
4. Effective use of resources.
5. An inclusive participatory process.
Thanks for listening