21 Top Functions of Health Educations (What Trained Health Educators Do)

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21 Top Functions of Health Educations (What Trained Health Educators Do)


What is a Health Educator? 

A Health Educator… is professionally prepared and possesses knowledge and skills based upon theories and research to promote health education behavior change in individuals and populations. Health Education draws from various sciences to promote health and prevent disease, disability, and premature death.

Health educators provide information on health and health related issues. 

They can assess health training needs and plan health education programs. 

They may specialize according to specific health concerns, illnesses, or work or training setting.

Health educators may work as independent consultants or in health departments, community organizations, businesses, hospitals, schools, or government agencies.

Health Educators often:

· Perform health training needs assessments.

· Design and develop health education programs.

· Publish health education materials, information papers, and grant proposals.

· Develop health education curricula.

· Teach health in public and private schools.

 

Skill Sets of Health Educators to Meet Public Health Needs

Health educators are uniquely positioned to address public health needs by deploying their training and competencies in the application of behavioral theories across a wide range of interventions designed to improve population health.

Health educators use a holistic approach to changing health behaviors, implementing evidence-based interventions and adapting to changing population needs.

For example, health educators can help multicultural populations with access to and use of the health system by improving their health insurance literacy and understanding of enrollment options and can conduct community health needs assessments required for nonprofit hospitals, modify policies or systems to improve access to preventive health services, and strengthen clinical and community linkages.

In addition, health educators can develop and implement training programs for professionals and consumers, market health programs and services, conduct evaluation research, analyze data and educate populations about wellness behaviors (e.g, vaccination campaigns, opioid abuse prevention programs), provide consultation to health agencies about different topics (eg, smoking prevention and cessation efforts), and apply their skills in cross-cultural communication and community organizing (eg, prenatal programs for expectant mothers in diverse communities) .

A health educator has training in public health, health promotion, or community health at the bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral levels.

To maintain the highest level of competence in the health education workforce, health educators can obtain additional certifications such as the Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) and Master Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES), both awarded through the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing to people who have met academic preparation and examination qualifications, which requires that the person remains up to date with education requisites, acquiring at least 75 continuing education contact hours every 5 years.


Read: The Scope of Health Education – Purpose, Basic Principles, Functions and Opportunities and Career Prospects

Top 21 Functions of Health Educations (What Trained Health Educators Do)

21 Top Functions of Health Educations (What Trained Health Educators Do)


Health educators teach people about behaviors that promote wellness. They are change agents (positive behavior change)

They also:

1.  Teach health education in schools

2.  Assess individual and community needs

3.  Plan health education programs

4.  Develop health education programs

5.  Coordinate health education programs

6.  Implement health education programs

7.  Manage health education programs and personnel

8.  Evaluate health education programs

9.  Write grants

10.  Build coalitions

11.  Identify resources

12.  Make referrals

13.  Develop social marketing and mass media campaigns

14.  Organize/mobilize communities for action

15.  Handle controversial health issues/content

16.  Advocate for health-related issues

17.  Encourage healthy behavior

18.  Use a variety of education/training methods

19.  Develop audio, visual, print and electronic materials

20.  Conduct research

21.  Write scholarly articles.

 

Read: Historical Background of Health Education

Job Opportunities and Career Prospects for Health Education Graduates in Nigeria

1. Specialist Careers in Health Education:

(a) Certified Education Specialist: The certified health educational master, or CHES, works to assist patients in progressing their everyday health and quality of life through healthcare-related instructive programs. Whereas their work is just as centered on the entire community as that of other masters.

The healthcare education professionals have more centers intelligent with individual people in traditional clinical situations, in this way, making the world a better place, one individual per time.

(b) Healthcare Information Analyst: The information analyst works with healthcare providers to raise broadly-focused educational campaigns. Their work is vital to distinguishing existing, far-reaching issues in clinical healthcare settings, as well as in pinpointing current deficiencies in existing open mindfulness activities. Whereas they may take part effectively in specific outreach programs, their part is fundamentally within the gathering and examination of essential data.

For that reason, they may plan overviews, surveys, and interviews, as well as program planning, to assemble vital information over time.

(c) Community Promotion Specialist: This specialization, inside the entire field of healthcare and open mindfulness, centers basically on general community mindfulness. Their community may be an expansive association, a government body, a metropolitan range, or a few other comprehensive statistics; ordinarily, it incorporates thousands of different people unless their center is on a specific racial, ethnic, or other narrowly defined statistics. 

The objective of the CHPS position is to collate and examine healthcare-related data, report on their findings, and plan campaigns to assist the foremost fundamental data reach the whole community.

(d) Product Development Specialist: The corporate world offers expanding opportunities for healthcare educational and promotional experts. One of the foremost sweeping career opportunities accessible to the public with this capability is that of the item improvement master. They incorporate a vast extend of obligations, but what it sums to in a nutshell could be a two-pronged approach to open wellness: the specialist helps within the design process, decreasing potential health dangers, and is additionally capable for creating materials relating to the right utilize of an item or service.

(e) Healthcare Promotional Specialists (HPS): A promotional specialist is something of a general practitioner within this profession’s range of careers, and who they interact with in terms of how they associate as well as who they connect with. A few may work with huge associations or other communities, whereas others might take a patient-by-patient approach. They tend to center on specific areas of concern. There are HPS professionals who concentrate on a wide range of growing concerns today, from the spread of sexually transmitted diseases to contagious viral organisms, to dental problems in children within a particular county or state.

2. Other Careers include;

(a) Health educator in schools (primary, secondary and universities)

(b) Community development worker

(c) Further education teacher

(d) Health service manager

(e) Health Counselor


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