Philosophy of health education
Health education has been reinvented as a critical element within the concepts of health promotion. Today, the healthcare sector is redefining itself to a system where the individuals, families and communities have to take a lead role in the management of their health. It is an aspect that empowers the people to recognize the responsibility that they hold towards their own health and in such a way that they regard the nurse or the nursing process as a complementary or support system to help meet their needs.
In my view, health is not confined to the physical issues that patients present. It is the wide range of aspects that act as leading modifiers of the state of functionality of an individual, family or community. It encompasses the social, spiritual, economic, psychological as well as political issues that affect the health and illness continuum. Rather than the absence of illness, I define health as the dynamic state within the health-illness continuum that affects the functionality of an individual at any particular time.
Thus, managing the aspects that influence the health-illness continuum is afforded through the nursing process and it is not limited to the pharmacotherapeutic interventions. It involves a correlation where the health educator engages with communities, identifies the various health issues and the knowledge gap within that community in terms of health. In this case, the health educator has to act as a role model as opposed to an enforcer since imparting health knowledge is all about the perception. A healthy relationship with the community thus becomes a core ingredient for the health educator.
Community health concepts
Community health is one of the oldest concepts that have always provided affordable and less costly alternatives for the healthcare sector in managing the health status of populations. It encompasses the healthcare entities going to the community and working interactively with them to identify the health issues that they may harbor as well as developing tailored solutions to those problems. A major advantage of community health is that the health problems are identified at an early stage long before they actually impact on the health status and functionality of a community and its people. Secondly community health identifies the socioeconomic health determinants specific to each community and appropriately refers these issues to relevant economic and political system that are expected to respond (McKenzie, Neiger & Thackeray, 2012).
Health education revolves around increasing the awareness of people on various health issues but even so imparting skills and knowledge. These skills and knowledge are essential in the development and maintenance of attitudes and behaviors that have a positive impact on health and wellness. Health promotion on its part seeks to go beyond teaching and creating awareness to a situation where it influences the health behaviors while serving the same goal as health education (Hickman, 2014).
For health promotion, it works in the same way as any other advertisement that is designed to influence the choices of people but in such a way that it actually involves the people participating in the process of change (McKenzie, Neiger & Thackeray, 2012). The health promotion programs will be evaluated to determine if the behavior change has occurred within the community where it was implemented. With health education the behavior change may not be visible or evident at the moment and the assumptions this that the community is now aware of the existing health issue and the individuals within this community will utilize the acquired knowledge to make appropriate health choices in the future (Hickman, 2014).
Applications of community health concepts
A particular application of the concepts of community health is for instance in a population where smoking has been identified as a marker for lung cancer within the young adults group, health education programs will seek to teach the affected and at risk groups on the importance of quitting while also affording them educational material on how they can actively quit smoking. Health promotion will be tangible in its approach in that it will include the development of actual community-based rehabilitation programs (Hickman, 2014).
It could even go as far as involving public authorities such as legislature in developing mechanisms to ban or limit the distribution, sale and use of cigarettes in the area based on the evidence available. The focus of health promotion is entirely to recognize risk and initiate tangible programs to minimize that risk. It apparently has its focus on increasing personal responsibility on health matters without necessarily redefining the role of the existing public health structures and mechanisms (McKenzie, Neiger & Thackeray, 2012).
Typically in case where the community indicates a obesity prevalence, the health promotion programs rather than identifying the missing resources, seeks to identify the available resources within the community that can be utilized to minimize obesity prevalence. Such will include measures such as peer-based physical exercise programs in open public spaces such as parks, increased appreciation for grocery foods as opposed to fast foods as well as alcohol quitting programs. It is important however to recognize that community health initiatives are based on a combination of health education and health promotion if at all optimization of knowledge has to occur. Health promotion on its part acts as a monitoring element for health education and its impact on actual behavior change.
The role of the health educator
As a health educator, my role would be to help the focus on helping the target groups recognize that health is defined along a continuum. Within this continuum, the individuals should recognize their role in achieving, maintaining and promoting a stable and viable state that optimizes their functionality. The focus would be on identifying the specific problems within each individual or community and collaboratively helping these groups define how they can overturn and seek solutions to these problems (McKenzie, Neiger & Thackeray, 2012).
At this point, the role of the nurse would be explored as one that should be integrated in a set of special cases where professional clinical intervention is necessary. In developing the planning model for utilization in health education, the health educators have thus to play a key role. On one hand is the ability to gather information that relates to a particular group. This information is used as the basis on which the health educators can develop trends and patterns that identify a particular health issue in the community.
Once these trends are identified, the health educators can easily make a choice of the existing knowledge gaps, level of education of the target population and the effective methods of learning that can be utilized for the group. The goal is to ensure that the educational materials to be used will be within the demographic as well as health needs of the target group (McKenzie, Neiger & Thackeray, 2012). The education materials should well be useful to the people even after the actual health education program has come to an end. This explains why the health educators have to explore the health issues as well as the demographic aspects of the target population (McKenzie, Neiger & Thackeray, 2012).
References
Hickman, P. (2014). Community health and development: applying sociological concepts to practice. Sociological Practice, 8(1), 13.
McKenzie, J. F., Neiger, B. L., & Thackeray, R. (2012). Planning, implementing, & evaluating health promotion programs: A primer. Pearson Higher Ed.
