This document provides information about health education. It begins with definitions of health and health education from WHO and other sources. The aims of health education are to help people understand health is a valuable asset and achieve optimal health through their own efforts. Objectives are to disseminate health knowledge, motivate behavior change, and guide people to healthy practices. The scope of health education includes topics like nutrition, hygiene, disease prevention, and use of health services. Principles of planning health education focus on community needs and interests and using local resources.

2. HEALTH EDUCATION
BY: GORAKHNATH S JADHAV
FINAL YEAR BASIC BSC
NURSING STUDENT,SCON

3. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
Students should able to know
about_______
1. definition of health education
2. aims of health education
3. objectives of health education
4. principles of health education
5. scope of health education
6. planning of health education
7. steps in planning health education
8. levels of health education
9. nurses responsibility

4. INTRODUCTION:
Health education is a term
frequently used by health care professional. its aims at
individual and community health. Health education is
the translation of what is known about health into
desirable individual and community behaviour pattern by
means of an education process.
HEALTH: According to WHO health is the state of
complete physical, psychological, spiritual, social well
being and not merely an absence of disease or
deformity.

5. Definition:
 . According to WHO :
“ health education is like a
general education which is concerned with changes in
Knowledge of people in its most usual forms, it
concentrates on developing such practices as are
believed to bring the best possible state of well being”.
 Alma Ata declaration:
“A process aimed at encourage
people to want to be healthy , to know how to stay
healthy, to do what they can individually and
collectively to maintain health And seek help when
needed”.

6. Aims of health education:
The definition adopted by WHO in 1969 and the Alma Ata
declaration adopted in 1978 provide a useful basis for
formulating the aims and objectives of health education.
These are as follows:
 To help the people understand that health is the most
valuable community asset, and to help them achieve
optimum health by their own activities and efforts.
 To develop a sense of responsibility for improving their
health as individual members of families and
communities

7.  To develop scientific knowledge, attitude, skills
on health matters to enable people to develop
correct habits.
 To educate people for proper use of health
services in whatever forms it is made available to
them by the government.
 To alter behaviour that may have directly or
indirectly influenced the occurrence or spread of
diseases in a given setting, a culturally relevant
health education programme can be planned only
after understanding the behaviour in all its
manifestations

8.  Promoting the greater possible fulfilment of
inherited powers of the body and the mind and
happy adjustment of an individual in the society.
 To provide a person with appropriate knowledge
to enjoy decent health and also knowledge about
the occurrence and spread of disease thus
enabling him to adopt relevant preventive
measures.
 To create in him an interest in his own health
well-being. To create in him an interest for the
health of other members of his family as well
those living in his surroundings.

9.  To create in him a desire to support health
education programmes in his area
In a nutshell, the focus of health education is on
people and action. Its goal is to make realistic
improvements in the basic quality of life.

10. OBJECTIVES
 To inform people or disseminate scientific knowledge
about prevention of disease and promotion of health
 To motivate people to change their habits and
lifestyle that are harmful to their health also
motivate people to adopt habits and ways of living
conducive to healthy living.
 To guide the people who need help to adapt and
maintain healthy practices and lifestyle by showing
proper community resources.

11. PRINCIPLES OF HEALTH EDUCATION

12.  Credibility Of Message: It is the degree to which
the message to be communicated is perceived as
trustworthy by the receiver.
 Creating interest among participants: It is a
psychological principle that people are unlikely to
listen to things that are not of their interest. If a
health programme is based on the felt needs, people
will participate in the programme willingly.
 Motivating the participants: Motivation is like a
petrol engine that drives the mental engine. It is the
fundamental desire in every person to learn.
Motivation is contagious; one motivated person may
spread motivation throughout the group.

13.  Enhance comprehension of content: It means
health education should be based on the level of
understanding, education and literacy of people
at whom the teaching is directed. Teaching should
be within the mental capacity of the audience.
 Ensure reinforcement: Repetition at intervals is
necessary to promote learning. Without
reinforcement and feedback, students can go
back to the pre-awareness stage.
 Encourage active participation: Health education
should aim at encouraging people to work actively
with health workers and others in identifying their
own health problems and also in developing
solutions.

14.  Learning by doing: Teaching is effective when
individuals actively participate in health
education. Learning becomes active and quicker if
the individuals are made active physically as well
as psychologically.
 Known to unknown: The people in a community
know something and the health educator enlarges
this knowledge. If the health educator links new
knowledge with the old knowledge, it can
enhance learning.
 Maintaining good human relations: Sharing of
information, ideas and feelings happens most
easily between people who have a good
relationship.

15.  Setting an example: The health educators should
set a good example in the topic they are dealing
with as it fosters better understanding.
 Regular feedback: Feedback is one of the key
concepts of the system approach. The health
educator can modify the elements of the system
in light of the feedback from his audience. For
effective communication, feedback is of
paramount importance
 Efficient leadership: Leaders are agents of
change and they can be made use of in health
education work. Psychologists have shown and
established that we learn best from people we
respect and regard.

16. The essential attributes of a leader are as follows
 Understands the needs of the community.
 Provides proper guidance.
 Takes initiative.
 Is receptive to the views and suggestions of
people.
 Identifies himself with the community.
Is selfless, honest, impartial, considerate and
sincere.
 Is easily accessible to people.

17. SCOPE OF HEALTH EDUCATION
1. Nutrition
2. Hygiene
3. Family health
4. Disease prevention and cantrol
5. Psychological health
6. Prevention of accident
7. Use of health services
8. Human biology

19.  Nutrition: The aim of nutrition education is to
guide people to choose optimum and balanced
diets, remove prejudices and promote good
dietary habits. nutrition education is a major
intervention for the prevention of malnutrition,
promotion of health and improving the quality of
life.

20.  Hygiene: This has two aspects:
personal and environmental.
Personal: The aim of personal
hygiene is to promote standards
of personal cleanliness .
Environmental: Has two aspects:
Domestic and community.
All environmental sanitation
programmes should include health
education

21.  Family health: The family is the first defence as well as
the chief reliance for the well-being of its members.
One of the main tasks of health education is to promote
family self-reliance, especially regarding the family's
responsibilities in child bearing, child rearing, self-care
and in influencing their children to adopt a healthy
lifestyle.

22.  Disease prevention and control: Drugs alone will
not solve health problems. Without health
education, a person may fall sick again and again
from the same disease. Educating the people
about the prevention and control of locally
endemic diseases is the first of the eight essential
activities in primary health care.

23.  Psychological health: Psychological health problem
can occur everywhere. There is a tendency to an
increase in the prevalence of psychological diseases
when there is a change in society from agriculture to
an industrial economy and when people move from
the warm intimacy of a village.

24.  Prevention of accidents: Accidents are a feature
of the complexity of modern life. Accidents can
occur in home, road and place of work. The
predominant factor in accidents is carelessness
that can be tackled by health education.

25.  Use of health services: Many people, particularly in
rural areas, do not know what health services are
available and many more do not know. There is a
communication gap between the public and state
health administration in the form of feedback for
further improvement of health services. One of the
declared aims of health education is to inform people
about the health services available in their
community.

26. PLANNING FOR HEALTH EDUCATION
planning: is the process of making thoughtful and
systemic decision about what needs to be done ,
how it has to be done, by whom And with what
sources.

27. Principles of planning health education
1) Focus on actual current needs and context of
community: It is important that plans are made
with the needs and context of the community in
mind. Health education should try to understand
what is currently happening in the community one
works in.
2) Plan for basic needs and interest of the
community: Consider the basic needs and interests
of the community. If the local needs and interests
are not kept under consideration, the plans may not
be effective.

28. 3) Planning with actual beneficiaries of health
education: Plan with the people involved in the
implementation of an activity. If people are
included in planning, they will be more likely to
participate and the plan will be more likely to
succeed.
4) Identify and use all relevant community
resources: It is essential that the health educator
identify all the relevant resources that are locally
available which could be used for benefit of people
receiving the health education.

29. 5) Follow principle of flexibility: Planning should
be flexible, not rigid. One should be able to modify
the plans when necessary. For example, you would
have to change your priorities if a new problem
needing an urgent response arose.
6) A realistic plan not hypothetical: The planned
activity should be achievable and take into
consideration the financial, personal resources
available and time constraints. Planning must be
realistic; do not plan unachievable activities.

30. Steps in planning health education
Planning is a continuous process. It does not just
happen at the start of project . Health education
must be well planned to actually improve and
promote individual, family and community health

31.  Needs assessment: Conducting needs assessment
is the first and probably the most important step
in any successful planning process. assessment is
the process of identifying and understanding the
health problems of the community and their
possible causes.
 Identify priorities: After identifying the needs
and resources of the community, the next is to
identify their priorities because each community
may have several problems but the urgent have to
be given top priority in health education. For
example: goitre

32.  Set the goals and objectives: In planning the
process of health education, setting goals and
objectives is the third and most essential step
because these goals and objectives serve as
consciously thought baseline parameters to be
achieved during health education.
 Develop strategies: Prior to the implementation
of the health education intervention one must
plan, develop and evaluate the several
alternative strategies to achieve the set goals and
objectives of health education because each
problem and target community is quite unique.

33.  Implementation: This is the core phase of the
health education process which includes carrying
out the planned strategies so that the set goals
and objectives of health education may be
achieved.
 Monitor and evaluation: This is the final step of
the planning process of health education where
continuous monitoring as well as end evaluation is
carried out to ensure the degree to which stated
goals and objectives have been achieved.

34. LEVELS/APPROACH OF HEALTH
EDUCATION

35. INDIVIDUAL LEVEL
 Individual Approach: The health education must
first create an atmosphere of friendship and allow
the individual to talk as much as possible. In this
individual teaching we can discuss, argue and
persuade the individual to change his behaviour.
But by this we can reach to a small population
and who come in contact with us.
Methods of individual health education
1) Home visit
2) Personal contact/ counselling
3) Personnel letters

36. 1) Home visit: A home visit is one of the best
approaches for individual health education because
it can become one of the best opportunities for
health education with individuals and their families.
Home visits are important to understand the real
background of families, their living conditions and
the environment in which they live.

37. 2) Personal contact/counseling : Personal contacts
or counselling (one-to-one communication) is a
helping process where one person explicitly and
purposefully gives his or her time to assist people
explore their situations and act on a solution. After
this the counsellor needs to work together with the
person to find solutions that are appropriate to
their situation.

38. 3) personal letters: Personal letters may also be
used for individual health education, where health
educators may get an opportunity to dispatch
letters or printed education material to the people
in a target community.

39. GROUP LEVEL
Group health education may be useful way to
deliver health education massages in efficient
manner. A well organized group permits sharing of
experiences and skills so that people are able to
learn from each other.

40. Methods of group discussion
1)Lecture method: (Chalk & Talk ) A lecture may be
defined as carefully prepared oral presentation of
facts organized thoughts and ideas by a qualified
person. The group should not be more than 30 and
talk should not exceed 15-20 minutes. By using
suitable audiovisual aids.
2) Group discussion: A group is an aggregation of
people interacting in a face to face situation. It is a
very effective method of health communication.

41. 3) Demonstration: A demonstration is a carefully
prepared presentation to show how to perform a
skill. This procedure is carried out step by step
before an audience.
4) Panel discussion: In a panel discussion 4-8
qualified persons talk about the topic. Sit and
discuss a given topic in front of a large
group/audience. The chairman opens the meeting.
Panel comprises of a chair person and 4-8 speakers.
After the main aspect of the subject are explored,
the audience is invited to take part.

42. 5) Symposium: It is a series of speeches on a
selected subject. Each expert person present it
briefly and at the end of session the chair person
make a comprehensive summary. Audience are
allowed to raise question.
6) Workshops : It consists of series of meetings
usually 4 or more with emphasis on an individual
work, within the group and with the help of
consultants and response personnel.
7) Role play: This is a brief acting out of an actual
situation for the benefit of the audience for better
understanding.

43. 8) Conference and seminars: This programmes are
usually held on a regional, state/national level.
Where several experts from different disciplines
meet to deliberate on a particular theme, to
appraise others of latest knowledge and research in
a particular field.
9) Open forum: It refers to the public meeting
which are held for various purposes in the
community, for example: gram sabha

44. COMMUNITY LEVEL
It is meant for a defined community and is not only
to create awareness but also to help people
understand their health problems and needs, find
alternatives solutions to their problems and needs ,
implement them, evaluate and get feedback and
accordingly do the needful.
For health education at the community level, it is
better to approach local leaders who are influential
and who have the people’s confidence.
These may include local officers such as
gramsevak, panchayat sarpanch ,police officer or
block development officer etc .

45. HOSPITAL LEVEL
1) Health Education in OPD/Outdoor: The patient and
his attendants have to spend a lot of time in the
outpatient department for health check-up, treatment,
registration, diagnosis, admission procedure etc. This
period can be utilised for health education. For this, the
following means/devices can be used:
 Exhibiting pictures, posters, charts, bulletin board
and models in the waiting hall.
 Arranging group discussion, slide show, or
documentary film in a proper place and on a proper
topic.
 Giving health education on a personal level in the
consulting room. This mainly includes nutrition clinic,
family planning clinic, psychiatric clinic etc.

46.  Distributing pamphlets.
 Arranging street plays or nukkad naatak in the
outpatient department or its neighbourhood.

47. 2) Health Education in wards/ IPD: While nursing
the indoor patients, nurses have the opportunities
to educate them. This period can be fully utilised to
give health education to the patients. For this the
following methods can be effective:
 Conversation with the patient and motivating him
for change in his behaviour.
 Imparting health education by arranging live
demonstration for nutrition, treatment, diagnosis
etc.
 Providing clinical or bedside teaching.
 Providing incidental teaching to patient and his
attendants.

48.  Presenting examples. To describe the gains of
health education in an individual suffering from
the same health education in an individual
suffering from the same disease and arranging a
meeting between the patient and the cured old
patients.

49. NURSES RESPONSIBILITY
The nurse should consider the following points in
health education:
 To gain the confidence of people.
 To arouse the interest in people about good
health.
 To motivate them to bring about changes in
habits for healthy life.
 To prepare them for utilisation of available
health services.
 To develop a sense of responsibility among people
towards good health of the whole community.

50. SUMMARY
In today’s topic i.e; Health Education we see the
1. Definition of health education
2. Aims and objectives of health education
3. Principles of health education
4. Scope of health education
5. Planning of health education
6. Steps in planning of health education
7. Levels of health education
8. Nurses responsibility

51. BIBLIOGRAPHY
1) “Textbook of community health nursing N.R.Brothers
publication 4th edition Keshav swarnakar page no. (260-
268 )
2) “Parks textbook of preventive and social medicine,
m/s banarsidas bhanot publishers, Park. k, 24th edition,
page no(894-900)“
3) "Essentials of community health nursing, Jaypee
brothers publications, Basavanthappa BT, 3rd edition,
page no(678-690)“
4) Textbook of communication and educational
technology in nursing Elsevier publication Suresh k.
Sharma ,Reena Sharma page no(415-442)
5) https//:www.slideshare.net./health-education.com

52. 🙏🏻THANK YOU🙏
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