Health Education Foundations and Health Promotion
This domain tests how well you can explain health education as a planned process, distinguish it from health promotion, and apply behavior-change and planning models to school and community settings. Expect questions on the social-ecological model, health literacy, needs assessment, and program evaluation.
Core rules and concepts
- Health education is a planned combination of learning experiences designed to improve health by increasing knowledge or influencing attitudes. Health promotion is broader: educational, organizational, economic, and environmental supports that make healthy behavior possible.
- The social-ecological model levels are intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational/institutional, community, and public policy. Effective programs act at more than one level.
- Health Belief Model: perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy.
- Transtheoretical Model stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, termination. Match strategies to the stage.
- Social Cognitive Theory: self-efficacy, observational learning, reciprocal determinism.
- WSCC (Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child) components include health education, physical education, nutrition environment, health services, counseling, social-emotional climate, physical environment, employee wellness, family engagement, and community involvement.
- Evaluation types: formative, process, impact, and outcome. PRECEDE-PROCEED is a planning model.
Worked example: A middle school wants to improve breakfast consumption. At the intrapersonal level, teach goal-setting and address perceived barriers. At the interpersonal level, involve parents. At the organizational level, offer grab-and-go breakfast. At the community level, partner with a food bank. At the policy level, adjust bus schedules. Reasoning: a single knowledge campaign often fails; the social-ecological model requires aligned action across levels.
Traps that cost marks: confusing health education with health promotion; placing an intervention at the wrong ecological level; treating precontemplation as readiness for action; evaluating only participant satisfaction (process) and calling it an outcome.