Health Education: From Theory to Practice

Throughout the course, you have learned about the principles of health education, the Code of Ethics that guide the ethical principles of health education, and the Seven Areas of Responsibility that govern health education. You have learned about the assessment process for health education programs, as well as the planning and implementation strategies used to create, evaluate, and manage health programs. For your Final Project, you will have the opportunity to build on the knowledge you have gained over the past nine weeks to create a health education intervention of your own. As a first step, use the information from your Week 3 Literature Review to identify an emerging health issue in your community. Be sure that the data from your literature review is reflective of the current health status of your community members. Once your topic has been identified, complete your assignment using the outline below:

Part 1: Using your Unit 3, 5, and 7 Mini-Projects as a foundation, and referencing the competencies in The Health Education Specialist: A Companion Guide for Professional Excellenceprepare an 8-10 page formal paper using the outline below. Your assignment should include a minimum of five references, and should follow APA guidelines.

1. Assess Needs, Assets, and Capacity for Health Education
   • Discuss the burden of this disease/condition in your community
   • Discuss the environmental, behavioral, and genetic factors that have influenced health behaviors related to this disease/condition
   • Assess the quality and availability of health education programs, interventions, and policies available to address this disease/condition in your community
2. Plan Health Education
   • Identify the priority populations and stakeholders in your community.
   • Formulate specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-sensitive objectives for your health education intervention – what do you seek to accomplish?
   • Select planning models, develop goal statements, and create a timeline for program implementation
   • Identify the factors that can foster or hinder implementation of your intervention.
   • Identify opportunities to integrate health education into existing (and successful) community programs.
3. Implement Health Education
   • Assess readiness for implementation of your intervention in the community
   • Identify implementation strategies that are culturally competent and meet appropriate literacy levels.
   • Identity community leaders, health care professionals, students, etc. that will serve as trainees for your program implementation – What are your training needs and objectives?
   • Discuss the theories your intervention is based on.
   • Provide specific details regarding your intervention – What do you plan to do and you do you plan to do it? How would implementation of this intervention improve the health of the community?
4. Conduct Evaluation and Research Related to Health Education
   • Develop evaluation/research questions for your intervention – how do you plan to evaluate your progress? What key indicators do you plan to use?
   • Identify the evaluation methods you will use for your intervention – i.e., process, outcome, etc.?
   • How will you communicate your research findings to key stakeholders and community members?
5. Administer and Manage Health Education
   • Identify support for your intervention – Who will support your efforts financially, and at the community level? What organizations will you seek funding from?
   • Evaluate the legal and ethical considerations of administering and managing your intervention – What factors should be taken into consideration?
   • Identify potential partners, and assess capacity of potential partners to meet your program goals
6. Serve as a Health Education Resource Person
   • Explain how professional health organizations and evidenced-based websites can serve as resources for your intervention
7. Communicate and Advocate for Health Education
   • Analyze the impact of current and proposed policies on your health issue, and the success of your intervention
   • Select effective methods to communicate your message to priority populations
   • Explain the major roles and responsibilities of health education professionals in planning, implementing, evaluating, and managing your health education intervention.

After examining all Seven Areas of Responsibility, reflect on the ethical issues Health Educators face as they plan, implement, evaluate, and manage health education programs. What dilemmas do they encounter? How do they ensure that their work is both in accordance with the Health Educator Code of Ethics, and beneficial to the community?

Part 2: Create an 8-10 slide PowerPoint presentation summarizing the main points of your intervention. This presentation will be made available for your classmates to review.