Health education: concepts and strategies
Singh, T.
Journal of the Indian Medical Association 94(3): 112-114
1996
ISSN/ISBN: 0019-5847 PMID: 8810211 Document Number: 458238
Physicians have a responsibility to educate people about their health as well as to treat them. In fact, achievement of "Health for All" requires that people become educated about immunization, nutrition, family planning, and environmental sanitation. The goal of health education is to change behavior by changing attitudes. Health education encourages self-reliance and motivates people to make their own health-related decisions. In order to reach patients, physicians must bridge the social gap created by the gulf between technical priorities and what is really possible for people to achieve. The process of health education moves from the sender to the message to the channel to the receivers to the effects. Appropriate methods can be used for individual or group communication and methods can focus on information provision and/or behavior change. Participatory methods are effective in changing behavior and include group analysis of a situation, group dialogue, persuasion, and educational games. An effective strategy for individual instruction is woman-to-woman or child-to-child communication, which depends upon the identification of "key" women and children. Development of a community-based health education strategy relies on community participation and the involvement of influential members of the community. After a message has been transmitted, innovators will begin the new practice, early adopters will follow, and slow adopters will wait and watch. The innovators and early adopters can help reduce resistance to the innovation. While it is a slow process, health education can improve attitudes and behavior.