Health Education ,Health And Human Behaviour HPSM Flashcards
What is health education
Explain the five key terms in the definition
In educational methods,know what defines the community for example teenage pregnancy or the kinds of food they eat to educate them on a balanced diet and use an appropriate strategy that is based on data
What is the SMOKERS BODY ?
Used to educate on smoking
“a combination of learning experiences designed to facilitate voluntary actions conducive to health.” (Lawrence Green)
Explanation of definition of Health Education
•The terms “combination, designed, facilitate and voluntary action” have significant implications in this definition.
•Combination: emphasizes the importance of matching the multiple determinants of behaviour with multiple learning experiences or educational interventions.
• Designed: distinguishes health education from incidental learning experiences as systematically planned activity
•Facilitate means create favourable conditions for action
•Voluntary action means behavioural measures are undertaken by an individual, group or community to achieve an intended health effect without the use of force, i.e., with full understanding and acceptance of purposes.
Define these Terms used for communication and health education activities :
Information,Education and Communication (IEC),Information,education,communication,social mobilization,health extension,BCC(behaviour change communication),nutrition education,family life education,patient education,advocacy
Terms used for communication and health education activities
•Information, Education and Communication (IEC) is a term originally from family planning and more recently HIV/AIDS control program in developing countries.
•It is increasingly being used as a general term for communication activities to promote health.
•Information: A collection of useful briefs or detailed ideas, processes, data and theories that can be used for a certain period of time.
•Education: A complex and planned learning experiences that aims to bring about changes in cognitive (knowledge), affective (attitude, belief, value) and psychomotor (skill) domains of behavior.
•Communication: the process of sharing ideas, information, knowledge, and experience among people using different channels.
•Social mobilization is a term used to describe a campaign approach combining mass media and working with community groups and organizations.
Health extension is an approach of promoting change through demonstration, working with opinion leaders and community based educational activities.
•Nutrition education is education directed at the promotion of nutrition and covers choice of food, food-preparation and storage of food.
•Family Life Education refers to education of young people in a range of topics that include family planning, child rearing and childcare and responsible parenthood.
•Patient education is a term for education in hospital and clinic settings linked to following of treatment procedures, medication, and home care and rehabilitation procedures.
•Behavior Change Communication (BCC): Is an interactive process aimed at changing individual and social behavior, using targeted, specific messages and different communication approaches, which are linked to services for effective outcomes.
•Advocacy: refers to communication strategies focusing on policy makers, community leaders and opinion leaders to gain commitment and support. It is an appeal for a higher-level commitment, involvement and participation in fulfilling a set program agenda.
What are the aims of health education
State and explain 12 principles of Health education
Aims
•Motivating people to adopt health-promoting behaviours by providing appropriate knowledge and helping to develop positive attitude.
•Helping people to make decisions about their health and acquire the necessary confidence and skills to put their decisions into practice.
Principles:
.health education should be need based:
Therefore before involving any individual, group or the community in health education with a particular purpose or for a programme the need should be ascertained. It has to be specific and relevant to the problems and available solutions.
•Health education aims at changing behaviour:
Therefore multidisciplinary approach is necessary for understanding of human behaviour as well as for effective teaching process.
•It is necessary to have a free flow of communication:
The two-way communication is particularly of importance in health education to help in getting proper feedback and get doubt cleared.
•The health educator has to adjust his talk and action to suit the group for whom s/he has to give health education. E.g. when the health educator has to deal with illiterates and poor people, s/he has to get down to their level of conversation and human relationships so as to reduce any social distance.
•Health Education should provide an opportunity for the clients to go through the stages of identification of problems, planning, implementation and evaluation. This is of special importance in the health education of the community where the identification of problems and planning, implementing and evaluating are to be done with full involvement of the community to make it the community’s own program.
•Health Education is based on scientific findings and current knowledge. Therefore a health educator should have recent scientific knowledge to provide health education.
•The health educators have to make themselves acceptable. They should realize that they are enablers and not teachers. They have to win the confidence of clients.
•The health educators should not only have correct information with them on all matters that they have to discuss but also should themselves practice what they profess. Otherwise, they will not enjoy credibility.
•It must be remembered that people are not absolutely without any information or ideas. The health educators are not merely passing information but also give an opportunity for the clients to analyze fresh ideas with old ideas, compare with past experience and take decisions that are found favourable and beneficial.
•The grave danger with health education programs is the pumping of all bulk of information in one exposure or enthusiasm to give all possible information. Since it is essentially a learning process, the process of education should be done step-by-step and with due attention to the different principles of communication.
•The health educator should use terms that can be immediately understood. Highly scientific jargon should be avoided.
• Health Education should start from the existing indigenous knowledge and efforts should aim at small changes in a graded fashion and not be too ambitious. People will learn step by step and not everything together. For every change of behaviour, a personal trail is required and therefore the health education should provide opportunities for trying out changed practices.
State and define the two approaches to health education
Approaches to Health Education
•The persuasion approach
•deliberate attempt to influence the other persons to do what we want them to do (DIRECTIVE APPROACH)
•The informed decision making approach
•giving people information, problem solving and decision making skills to make decisions but leaving the actual choice to the people
Who are the targets for health education and who is responsible
Targets for health education
•Individuals such as clients of services, patients, healthy individuals
•Groups E.g. groups of students in a class, youth club
•Community E.g. people living in a village or town
Who is responsible for health education?
•everybody involved in health
Why are health education settings used
State five roles of a health educator
Health education settings
•Settings are used because interventions need to be planned in the light of the resources and organizational structures peculiar to each. Health education and promotion takes place, amongst other locations, such as:
•Communities
•Health care facilities
•Work sites
•Schools
•Prisons
Refugee camps
Roles of the educator
•Talking to the people and listening to their problems
•Thinking of the behaviour or action that could cause, cure and prevent these problems.
•Finding reasons for people’s behaviours
•Helping people to see the reasons for their actions and health problems.
•Asking people to give their own ideas for solving the problems.
•Helping people to think through their ideas so that they could see which are the most useful and the simplest to put into practice.
•Encouraging people to choose the idea best suited to their circumstances
Exercise
- Define health education?
- Explain why voluntary actions are so important in health education programs.
- List health education settings found in your locality.
- Mention five basic principles of health education.
Human behaviour is among the major determinants of the health of individuals, families or communities.
•Healthy behaviours contribute to the overall health of individuals and communities and unhealthy behaviours adversely affect the quality of life people at different levels.
•Most health issues cannot be dealt with by treatment alone.
•The promotion of health and prevention of diseases will usually involve some changes in life styles or human behaviour.
What is behaviour?
How can our behaviours affect our health ?
What is a lifestyle ?
What is customs?
What is traditions?
What is culture?
Behaviour is an action that has a specific frequency, duration and purpose whether conscious or unconscious.
•It is what we “do” and how we “act”.
•People stay healthy or become ill, often as a result of their own action or behaviour.
The following are examples of how people’s actions can affect their health:
• Using mosquito nets and insect sprays helps to keep mosquito away.
• Feeding children with bottle put them at risk of diarrhoea.
• Defecating in an open field will lead to parasitic infection.
• Unsafe sex predisposes people to unwanted pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and other STDs
In health education it is very important to be able to identify the practices that cause, cure, or prevent a problem.
•The words actions, practices and behaviours are different words of the same thing.
•Life style: refers to the collection of behaviours that make up a person’s way of life-including diet, clothing, family life, housing and work.
•Customs: It represents the group behaviour. It is the pattern of action shared by some or all members of the society.
•Traditions: are behaviours that have been carried out for a long time and handed down from parents to children
•Culture: is the whole complex of knowledge, attitude, norms, beliefs, values, habits, customs, traditions and any other capabilities and skills acquired by man as a member of society.
State and explain five characteristics of culture
Distinguishing characteristics of culture
• Culture is symbolic. It is an abstract way of referring to, and understanding ideas, objects, feelings or behaviour – the ability to communicate with symbols using language. To convey new ideas people may invent single words to represent many different ideas, feelings or values.
• Culture is shared. People in the same society share common behaviour patterns and ways of thinking through culture. For example people living in a society share the same language, dress in similar styles, eat much of the same food and celebrate many of the same holidays.
• Culture is learned. A person must learn culture from other people in a society. For instance, people must learn to speak and understand a language and to abide by the rules of a society.
• Culture is adaptive. People use culture to adjust flexibly and quickly to changes in the world around them. For instance a person can adjust his diet when he changes an area of residence.
State and explain six behaviours that promote health and prevent diseases
Behaviours promoting health and preventing diseases
•Healthy behaviours: - actions that healthy people undertake to keep themselves or others healthy and prevent disease. Good nutrition, breast feeding, reduction of health damaging behaviours like smoking are examples of healthy behaviours
•Utilization behaviour: - utilization of health services such as antenatal care, child health, immunization, family planning…etc
•Illness behaviour: - recognition of early symptoms and prompt self-referral for treatment.
•Compliance behaviours: - following a course of prescribed drugs such as for tuberculosis.
•Rehabilitation behaviours: - what people need to do after a serious illness to prevent further disability.
•Community action: - actions by individuals and groups to change and improve their surroundings to meet special needs.
State and explain three factors that affect human behavior (define them and give examples)
- Predisposing factors: provide the rationale or motivation for the behavior to occur. Some of these are:
• Knowledge
• Belief
• Attitudes
• Values - Enabling factors: these are characteristics of the environment that facilitates healthy behavior and any skill or resource required to attain the behavior. Enabling factors are required for a motivation to be realized.
Examples of enabling factors include:
• Availability and or accessibility of health resources
• Government laws, priority and commitment to health
• Presence of health related skills
E.g. Enabling factors for a mother to give oral rehydration solution to her child with diarrhea would be:
• Time, container, salt, sugar
• Knowledge on how to prepare and administer it
- Reinforcing factors: these factors come subsequent to the behaviour. They are important for persistence or repetition of the behaviour. The most important reinforcing factors for a behaviour to occur or avoid include:
• Family
• Peers, teachers
• Employers, health providers
• Community leaders
• Decision makers
What is prevention
What are the three distinct levels of prevention
What is prevention?
Prevention is defined as the planning for and the measures taken to forestall the onset of a disease or other health problem before the occurrence of undesirable health events.
•There are three distinct levels of prevention: primary, secondary, tertiary prevention.
A healthy person sees early signs of a disease (primary)
Signs progress to a disease(secondary)
Disease causes death(tertiary)
So you can do prevention at these levels
Exercise
1. Identify helpful, neutral and harmful beliefs in your locality.
2. Discuss the enabling factors for latrine construction by a family, and contraception use by a woman.
3. Give examples of important human behaviors, which contribute to primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of diseases
