My Personal Philosophy for Health Education

This is a such an important question and I am beginning to realize I have never had a consistent philosophy when it comes to my methods for education. I do believe health is focused around mental and physical well-being. Therefore, my philosophy for health education caters to those two things. Apart from that I aim for the most up to date trends in health to be taught. "The health education profession needs a clear delineation of the major existing philosophies and analysis of current trends in health education philosophies (Black, J., et al., 2010)." `There are various types of philosophies established and I believe I am for a eclecticism technique in my personal philosophy. I want behavior change to be the key focus, however how do I educate on that behavior change?

I believe a level of self-efficacy must be established to build decision-making skills and the confidence to make the difference along with the facts to make it effective. Along with that, I believe behaviors are established around values and beliefs and the technique to educate on change will have to look different for each person. Russell discusses in the book that using different philosophies in educating can provide more versatility in the outcomes for health education (Black, J., et al., pg 89, 2010). While, there is still no guarantee on if this is a strength or weakness it does provide more in the world of health education that is still being developed. Everyday when I meet with a client their are facing different health concerns and they come from different backgrounds and I work to build on their strengths to improve upon their weaknesses to better their overall health. I do this by instilling a little of each established philosophy into my own.

How each person learns is a key component in implementing my personal philosophy and working around this will allow for more effective outcomes overall. Learning how each of us makes our decisions and learns can allow the strengthening of leadership toward their health and building their self-efficacy. Following this is the education to make the difference. "An education is an attribute of a person. And, although a person may be said to “have” a certain level of education at any particular moment, educational attainment is a dynamic, ever-evolving array of knowledge, skills, and capacities. (Hahn, R.A., et al, 2015)." There is generally an improvement in public health with the higher amount of education within a population. So, insuring the use of my personal philosophy I can see the improvements in everyone I educate about health.

Resources:

Black, J. M., Furney, S., Graf, H. M., & Nolte, A. E. (2010). In Philosophical foundations of health education, Jossey-Bass. (pp. 80-89).

Carter, S., Rychetnik, L., Lloyd, B., Kerridge, I., Baur, L., & Bauman, A. et al. (2011). Evidence, Ethics, and Values: A Framework for Health Promotion. American Journal Of Public Health, 101(3), 465-472. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2010.195545 (Links to an external site.)

Hahn, R. A., & Truman, B. I. (2015). Education Improves Public Health and Promotes Health Equity. International journal of health services : planning, administration, evaluation, 45(4), 657–678. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020731415585986