Behavior Change and Health Education

In my prior posts regarding my personal philosophy on health education I discussed my multi-faceted approach to making it a success. When creating my concept map I was able to dive even deeper in the essential areas. Yes, behavior change was the essential drive for each category- beliefs, self-efficacy, ethical- decision making, etc. They all trace back to one of the fundamentally essential aspects to health education, not just because these are what make the person, but because it is what makes people feel understood and relatable. We are all humans after all and understanding the struggles and hurdles we all face can be humbling and make education that much easier in developing skills like critical thinking and informed decision making skills.

When it comes to constructs for behavior change in populations, I relate most to the socio-ecological model because the various levels that directly correlate and interact in a persons health and their behaviors. Whether it is individual and all that they are surrounded by (community, culture, beliefs, family, etc.) or policies that are implemented that trickle down from various areas to directly relate to population health, it is all cohesive and has a lasting impact. This can all be addressed and used in making behavior change within a population. This image is a representation of this model in society and how mental health/behavior health can impact healthy outcomes and why it is an important model in my behavior change approach for health education.

Resources:

Black, J. M. (2010). Philosophical foundations of health education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Kousoulis, A. A., & Goldie, I. (2021). A Visualization of a Socio-Ecological Model for Urban Public Mental Health Approaches. Frontiers in public health, 9, 654011. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.654011 (Links to an external site.)

Pelletier, K. (1977.) Mind as healer, Mind as slayer. New York, Delacorte.

Tengland, P. (2013.) Behavior Change or Empowerment: On the Ethics of Health-Promotion Goals. Health Care Anal (2016) 24:24–46. DOI 10.1007/s10728-013-0265-0

Wallerstein, N. (1992.) Powerless, empowerment and health: implications for health promotion programs. American Journal of Health Promotion, 6, 197-205.

Wallerstein, N., & Bernstein, E. (1988). Empowerment education: Freire's ideas adapted to health education. Health education quarterly, 15(4), 379–394. https://doi.org/10.1177/109019818801500402