Health Education
Practice Settings
(Excerpted from Chapter 15 of “Introduction to Health Education and Health Promotion” by Bruce G. Simons-Morton,
Water H. Greene, and Nell H. Gottlieb, Waveland Press, Inc. 1995)
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Introduction
 Health education occurs in a variety of
places, these include:
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Schools
Worksites
Health care organizations
Health departments
Voluntary health agencies
Community settings
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Comparison of Settings
Setting
Primary Mission
Who is Served?
School
Education
Children/adolescents
Worksite
Produce goods and services; Consumers of products and
Make a profit (if applicable)
services
Hospitals
Treat illness and trauma
Patients
Community primary care
setting
Prevent, detect, and treat
illness and trauma
Patients
Health Department
Chronic and infectious
disease prevention and
control
Public
Voluntary health agencies
Prevention and control
targeted disease/condition
Public
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Objectives for Educational and Community-Based Programs
by Settings
Setting
Objectives
School
Increase to at least 75% the proportion of the nation's elementary and
secondary schools that provide planned and sequential kindergarten
through twelfth-grade quality school health education.
Worksite
Increase to at least 50% the proportion of postsecondary institutions
with institution-wide health promotion programs for students, faculty
and staff.
Health care provider
Increase to at least 90% the proportion of hospitals, and health
maintenance organizations, that provide patient education programs,
and to at least 90% the proportion of community hospitals that offer
community health promotion programs addressing the priority health
needs of their communities.
Community
Increase to at least 50% the proportion of counties that have
established culturally and linguistically appropriate community health
promotion programs for racial and ethnic minority populations.
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School Health Education Themes
Education and health are interrelated.
The biggest threats to health are “social
morbidities.”
3. A more comprehensive, integrated
approach is needed.
4. Health promotion and education efforts
should be centered in and around school.
5. Prevention efforts are cost-effective; the
social and economic costs of inaction are
too high and still escalating.
1.
2.
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Quality Classroom Instruction Goals
 Students embrace health as a value
 Students be provided with the knowledge,
skills, and empowerment needed to choose
and maintain healthful personal behaviors
 As a lifetime learner, students be able to
obtain, evaluate, and use new information for
future health-related decisions.
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Comprehensive School Health
Program
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Health Education
 A planned, sequential, K-12 curriculum that addresses the
physical, mental, emotional and social dimensions of
health.
 The curriculum is designed to motivate and assist
students to maintain and improve their health, prevent
disease, and reduce health-related risk behaviors.
 It allows students to develop and demonstrate
increasingly sophisticated health-related knowledge,
attitudes, skills, and practices.
 The comprehensive health education curriculum includes
a variety of topics.
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Physical Education
 A planned, sequential K-12 curriculum that
provides cognitive content and learning
experiences in a variety of activity areas.
 Quality physical education should promote,
through a variety of planned physical
activities, each student's optimum physical,
mental, emotional, and social development,
and should promote activities and sports that
all students enjoy and can pursue throughout
their lives.
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Health Services
 Services provided for students to appraise,
protect, and promote health.
 Qualified professionals such as physicians,
nurses, dentists, health educators, and other
allied health personnel provide these
services.
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Nutrition Services
 Access to a variety of nutritious and
appealing meals that accommodate the
health and nutrition needs of all students.
 The school nutrition services offer students a
learning laboratory for classroom nutrition
and health education, and serve as a
resource for linkages with nutrition-related
community services.
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Counseling and Psychological
Services
 Services provided to improve students'
mental, emotional, and social health. These
services include individual and group
assessments, interventions, and referrals.
 Organizational assessment and consultation
skills of counselors and psychologists
contribute not only to the health of students
but also to the health of the school
environment.
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Healthy School Environment
 The physical and aesthetic surroundings and
the psychosocial climate and culture of the
school.
 The psychological environment includes the
physical, emotional, and social conditions that
affect the well-being of students and staff.
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Health Promotion for Staff
 Opportunities for school staff to improve their
health status through activities such as health
assessments, health education and healthrelated fitness activities.
 This personal commitment often transfers into
greater commitment to the health of students
and creates positive role modeling.
 Health promotion activities have improved
productivity, decreased absenteeism, and
reduced health insurance costs.
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Family/Community Involvement
 An integrated school, parent, and community
approach for enhancing the health and well-being of
students.
 School health advisory councils, coalitions, and
broadly based constituencies for school health can
build support for school health program efforts.
 Schools actively solicit parent involvement and
engage community resources and services to
respond more effectively to the health-related needs
of students.
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Worksite Health Education Programs
 Physical activity and fitness
 Nutrition and weight control
 Stress reduction
 Worker safety and health
 Blood pressure and/or cholesterol education
and control
 Alcohol, smoking and drugs
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Motivations for Employers
 Reduces medical care costs
 Enhances productivity
 Enhances the image of the company
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An Example of a Worksite Health
Education Program - Nutrition
Level
Program Strategy
Individual
Nutrition information available through newsletters, books
and video; Nutrition behavior-change program.
Interpersonal
Healthful food cooking contests; Nutrition classes for
families; Buddy programs for weight loss; Competitions for
weight loss.
Organizational
Cafeteria offers low-fat and low-calorie choices; Labeling of
nutritional content of foods in cafeteria; Subsidized healthful
foods; Vending machines with healthful foods.
Community
Institutional food service vendors offer low-fat and low-calorie
foods; Nearby restaurants offer low-fat and low-calorie foods;
A community campaign focuses on good nutrition.
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Health Care Settings
 In the hospital, direct patient education is part
of ongoing patient care and is typically
delivered by nurses and physicians
 Group health education on such topics as
diabetes and prenatal care are also provided
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An Example of Health Education in Health Care
Settings – Cystic Fibrosis (CF)
Level
Strategies
Individual
Educational modules including feature stories,
information about the disease process, skills, and selfmonitoring.
Interpersonal
Interaction with health care team members about
patient concerns related to CF and goals for selfmanagement; Family discussion and practice of selfmanagement behaviors and symptom monitoring.
Organizational
Primary care physician refers family to program; CF
Family Education Program provided by CF Center
Community
School nurses and teachers assist child and family in
self-management of CF
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Federal Community Health Settings
 Public tax-supported health agencies
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Department of Health and Human Services
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The National Institutes of Health
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Food and Drug Administration
The Indian Health Service
The Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health
Administration
The Health Care Finance Administration
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Local and State Health Departments
 Direct health services are offered by the local
health departments.
 Planning, Consultation, vital statistics,
laboratory services, regulation, and
coordination functions occur at the state as
well as the local levels.
 Health educators work in family planning,
nutrition, dental health, tobacco control,
chronic disease, AIDS, immunizations, and
communicable diseases,
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Example of Local and State Health Department
Health Education Strategies
Level
Program Strategy
Individual
Mass media campaigns to increase knowledge of the risks of
breast cancer, the benefits of screening, and how to obtain
screening services.
Interpersonal
Use of community volunteers to alert women to the
importance of breast cancer screening and how to obtain
information; Encourage discussion of breast cancer
screening and benefits through small group educational
programs and through feature stores in media.
Organizational
Provider referral of women already enrolled in health
department programs; Outreach activities directed to
worksites, senior centers and churches to alert women about
the program.
Community
Create coalitions of providers to offer coordinated screening,
referral, diagnostic, and treatment services.
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