Spiritual_Wellness_Holistic_Health_and_the_Practic

62 Philosophical Foundations of Health Education
Process
The core of health education practice in the future will be helping people learn how to
learn. The rapid production of information — the technological explosions occurring
monthly mean that facts get outdated before they ’ re disseminated. What ’ s effective
practice one week is ineffective the next. Life is not as simple as following a formula
for risk reduction or anything else. Health education in the new century will help people
learn how to use data, how to be analytical, how to make judgments, how to tailor
their own solutions to their own needs, in short, to learn how to learn.
Cost
There will be, however, no give on the issue of cost. Health education interventions
will need to prove themselves as not only affordable, but generating cost savings. We
will confront a three - way paradox if there is such a thing: reach large audiences with
programs that are at the same time relevant to cultural differences and cost effective.
The need for solid demonstration research will be as great or greater than it has always
been. The need for efficient practice will not lessen.
Quality of Life
The measure of successful health education in the future will be whether or not people
judge the quality of their lives to be better because of it. There will be a major paradigm
shift where health and medical care will be deemed effective if people feel they
are functioning optimally and are happy. Knowledge tests, attitude scales, objective
tests of health status, and measures of health care utilization will only be relevant as
they relate to individual and community views about the quality of life. To define quality,
we ’ ll work even more closely with our clients to understand how they want their
lives to be and how they perceive health education as useful to them.
Integration and Multi - level Services and Education
We need to perfect our mechanisms for designing and delivering multi - level approaches
to priority health problems, approaches that make health education optimum. We have
to develop approaches that adequately address the complexity of the health problems
we face. With apologies to Simons - Morton and colleagues (1988), I will try to summarize
their observations on how we can have major impact on health problems by
addressing several strata of a problem at once. They suggest that our health education
has to work on at least three levels: governmental, organizational, and individual. We
have to consciously target “ key ” government and community leaders, organizational
decision makers, individuals at risk. We need governments that are operating on the
basis of healthful policies, regulations, and programs. We need organizations that enact
healthful policies, maintain healthful facilities, implement healthful programs. We
need individuals who are healthful in their behavior, and in the physical and psychological
aspects of their life. All these levels must be involved to engender improved
health status in the society.