Praxis Health Education 5551 flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Health education definition

A planned combination of learning experiences designed to enable people to voluntarily adopt health-enhancing behaviors; it is distinct from health promotion, which also changes environments, policies, and systems.

Areas of Responsibility

The profession's competency framework covering needs assessment, planning, implementation, evaluation and research, advocacy, communication, and leadership and professionalism; certification exams are built from it.

Certification versus licensure

Certification such as CHES or MCHES is a voluntary credential verifying competency through an exam; licensure is a mandatory legal credential granted by a state that authorizes practice.

Socio-ecological model

A framework holding that health behavior is shaped at intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy levels, so effective interventions usually act on several levels at once.

Health belief model

A value-expectancy model predicting behavior from perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, and barriers, plus cues to action and self-efficacy; perceived barriers typically predict behavior most strongly.

Stages of change

The transtheoretical model stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Interventions are matched to stage, and relapse returns a person to an earlier stage without erasing progress.

Social cognitive theory

Bandura's model of reciprocal determinism among person, behavior, and environment, with self-efficacy, observational learning, outcome expectations, and reinforcement as core constructs for explaining behavior change.

Health literacy

The capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services to make informed decisions; limited literacy is addressed with plain language, visuals, and teach-back.

Leading actual causes of death

Behavioral and environmental contributors such as tobacco use, poor diet, physical inactivity, and alcohol consumption that underlie most mortality, as opposed to the physiological causes recorded on death certificates.

Adult aerobic activity guideline

Adults should get 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity weekly, plus muscle-strengthening activities on two or more days per week.

Dietary limits

U.S. dietary guidance caps added sugars and saturated fat below 10% of daily calories and sodium at 2,300 mg per day, while emphasizing fiber, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

Adult immunization highlights

Influenza vaccine annually, Td or Tdap booster every 10 years, COVID-19 vaccination per current schedule, shingles vaccine from age 50, and pneumococcal vaccine for adults 65 and older.

HPV and chlamydia facts

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection and is vaccine-preventable; chlamydia is the most commonly reported bacterial STI and is frequently asymptomatic, making screening essential.

Hypertension threshold

Current U.S. guidance defines hypertension as sustained blood pressure of 130/80 mmHg or higher, with lifestyle change and medication decisions based on stage and overall cardiovascular risk.

Chain of infection

Infectious agent, reservoir, portal of exit, mode of transmission, portal of entry, and susceptible host; interventions such as hand hygiene, isolation, and vaccination break specific links.

Suicide risk response

Warning signs include ideation, a plan, hopelessness, and withdrawal; asking directly about suicide does not increase risk, and immediate referral to crisis services is required.

Naloxone

An opioid antagonist that rapidly reverses respiratory depression in opioid overdose; it is a harm-reduction tool and does not substitute for emergency medical care afterward.

Needs assessment sequence

Define purpose and population, gather existing surveillance and records data, collect new survey or interview data, then prioritize needs by magnitude, severity, and changeability before planning.

SMART objectives

Objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound; a behavioral objective states the behavior, the conditions of performance, and the criterion for success.

Bloom's taxonomy

Cognitive levels from knowledge through comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation; the level chosen determines which verbs and assessment methods fit an objective.

Implementation fidelity

The degree to which a program is delivered as designed; it requires tracking dose delivered, dose received, and adaptations, because unintended modification weakens attribution of outcomes to the program.

Logic model

A diagram linking inputs, activities, outputs, short-term outcomes, intermediate outcomes, and long-term impact; each connecting arrow is an assumption that evaluation should test.

Cultural tailoring

Adapting content, language, messengers, and delivery to the priority population's culture and literacy, while also addressing structural barriers such as cost, transportation, and scheduling.

Pretesting messages

Testing draft materials with members of the target audience for comprehension, acceptability, and cultural fit before wide release, reducing the risk of misread or ignored messages.

Informed consent in programs

Voluntary participation based on disclosure of purpose, procedures, risks, and benefits, with confidentiality protections and referral pathways for needs discovered during screening or education.

Formative versus summative

Formative evaluation occurs during development or delivery to improve the program; summative evaluation occurs after implementation to judge whether the program achieved its intended outcomes.

Process, impact, outcome

Process evaluation checks whether activities were delivered as planned; impact evaluation measures short-term knowledge, attitude, and behavior change; outcome evaluation measures long-term health status and quality of life.

Validity versus reliability

Validity is whether an instrument measures the intended construct; reliability is consistency over repeated administrations or across items, with Cronbach's alpha near 0.70 or higher often considered acceptable.

Sensitivity and specificity

Sensitivity is the proportion of people with the condition correctly identified as positive; specificity is the proportion without the condition correctly identified as negative.

Positive predictive value

The probability that a person who tests positive actually has the condition; unlike sensitivity and specificity, it depends on how common the condition is in the tested population.

Internal validity threats

History, maturation, testing effects, instrumentation change, selection bias, attrition, and regression to the mean can explain observed change; a comparison group controls some but not all of them.

Study design strength

Causal strength ranks randomized controlled trials highest, then quasi-experimental designs with comparison groups, then single-group pretest-posttest, then cross-sectional surveys that cannot establish temporal order.