Health Education …
… is any combination of learning experiences designed to predispose, enable, and reinforce voluntary behavior conducive to health in individuals, groups or communities.
– Green and Kreuter, 2005
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Health Education’s Goals
To understand health behaviors and to translate knowledge into relevant interventions and strategies for health enhancement, disease prevention, and chronic illness management
To enhance wellness and decrease disability
To influence individuals within their social environment for improved health and well-being
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Florence Nightingale founder of modern nursing
emphasized that health teaching is one of the most fundamental nursing principles
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Nurses Role in
Community Education
Promote health education activities and services outside the walls of hospitals, in settings such as
Young Men’s/Women’s Christian Associations
(YMCA/YWCAs), church, schools, grocery stores, and homeless shelters.
Nurses are uniquely qualified to influence the health and well-being of community members’ health behaviors through original and inventive activities by being an:
Advocate, caregiver, educator, counselor , case manager or consultant
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Significance of Health education in the Community
Encourage behavioral changes in the comfort of the individuals environment
Establish trusting relationships with individuals within the community
Deliver health promoting programs that relate economical, political, and epidemiological factors
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Learning Theories
Learning theories are helpful in understanding how individuals, families, and groups learn. theories can aid nurses to recognize the mechanisms that potentially modify knowledge, attitude, and behavior
Humanistic theory helps an individual develop his or her potential in a self-directing and holistic manner.
Cognitive theory recognizes the brain’s ability to think, feel, learn, and solve problems; theorists in this area train the brain to maximize these functions.
Social learning is based on behavior explaining and enhancing learning through the concepts of efficacy, outcome expectation, and incentives.
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Health Education Models
Two models that explain why individuals do or do not participate in health actions.
Health promotions model: explains why individuals engage in health actions.
Health belief Model: explains why individuals do not participate in health actions.
Health Promotion Model
Health Belief Model
Importance of health
Perceived susceptibility
Perceived control of health
Perceived severity
Perceived self-efficacy
Perceived benefits
Definition of health
Perceived barriers
Perceived health status
Self-efficacy
Perceived benefits of health-promoting behaviors
Demographics
Cues to action
Perceived barriers to health-promoting behaviors The HBM and HPM can assist community health nurses in examining an individual’s health 9 choices and decisions for influencing health-related behaviors.
Model of Health
Education Empowerment
Empowerment is the total sum of efforts that are defined as
“gaining controls over decision-making at the individual, family, community, and societal levels.”
– Nies and McEwen (2006)
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Concepts of Empowerment
concept of empowerment can be traced back to
Paulo Freire
Brazilian educator in the 1950s who sought to promote literacy among the poorest of the poor
He based his work on a problem-solving approach to education, which contrasts with what he called the
“banking education approach,” where teachers give information, which
