Spiritual_Wellness_Holistic_Health_and_the_Practic

Health Education and Health Promotion 71
would be required to address this subject. Psychology and behavioral sciences provide
a foundation for many aspects of education. Education in turn provides health education
with much of its founding principles. Thus the lines which separate these two supportive
fields are unclear. A clear delineation of how both of these have contributed
to health education is also an entangled thicket. Yet almost all dynamics that occur in
the health education process — that is, health instruction, community health education,
patient education, health counseling, and various aspects of health promotion — rely
on education theory and underlying educational psychology principles. Health education
historically found that concepts, like activities from the bottom of the “ cone of
learning ” and experiential learning, were much more effective than approaches used in
“ hard science ” subjects which rely on a certain amount of role learning.
BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE ’ S CONTRIBUTION
One of the first areas where preventive medicine and health education have been effective
and moderately well received is in the area of communicable disease prevention.
The marriage of disease prevention and health education was natural. The understanding
of the cause, epidemiology, and communication of disease and how the transmission
of disease can be prevented requires an understanding of the biological and
medical sciences on the health educator ’ s part. The health educator has to be able to
communicate with professionals in the medical and health care community, all of
whom rely on a biomedical educational foundation. Medical terminology and health
care administration skills and knowledge are fundamental to successful community
health education and health promotion (yet are missing from most curriculums).
Credibility in all aspects of health education, from school health instruction to health
counseling to management of community health education programs, relies on some
competency in the biomedical sciences.
MANAGEMENT ’ S AND MARKETING ’ S CONTRIBUTION
Community health education, wellness programs, and health promotion projects do
not rely on a single person to have sole knowledge of health topics and health and
medical content areas. Moreover, employers of persons expected to do health education
activities outside the health instruction setting expect the health educator to have
management and administration skills which minimally include accounting, budgeting,
human relations/management, computer science, organization/program development,
controlling, supervision, and coordinating. Having an extensive amount of
knowledge and understanding about health topics and content areas does not get management
of the program accomplished nor help show the boss, board of directors, or
administrator that the health promotion program is cost effective. This area has been
lacking in many health education programs, and today much resistance has been shown
in acceptance of the need for administration training. The management need is ignored
by the academic community in all of its tradition and pomposity, while graduating