Scope of Health Education

Health, Population and Environment Education is important to provide them safe and clean environment.The scopes of health education are various places, organization and subjects through which health education can be acquired. Population education is related with every aspect and activity of human beings. Environment education aims to develop a healthy environment by the conservation and management of environment.

Scope of Health education

In the beginning, the scope of health education was limited to families, schools and communities, but today its scope is considerably widened.

The scope of health education are given below:

1. Fields of Health education from socio- cultural point of view: Human is a social being. People have different settings according to their occupation and activities. Fundamentally home, school and community are considered as the scope of health education from the socio -cultural point of view.

2. Home: Home is the foundation upon which their society is built. Home is the place where family members live who often has similar needs and interest. Fundamental behavior patterns such as eating, sleeping, as well as many emotional relation with people in different situations is laid at home. Within the home, parents are the principal educators. Most of the health education is done informally in the day- by- day give and take of relationships. And community health workers can provide health education to the parents about the best ways of living, care of child, keeping home and environment clean and so on. They can help the school going both through personal contacts and parent teacher organizations.
3. School: School is important place where the health education can be given to the students. Health education of the students should be one with education in general as well as with the school health programmes. School health education takes its place in the general curriculum through the individual health counseling, in relation to daily experiences and systematic health instructions. Health education activities motivate us and encourage the students to utilize the available health services for the improvement of health. Planned and formal school health education teaches various health rules, ways of living, preventive measures, social responsibilities, scientific thoughts and facts, health practices and so on.
4. Community: A group of families and ethnic groups from the community. Community wide health education is frequently called public health education. Public health education is commonly conducted through activities of health departments, voluntary health agencies, schools, and many other community groups. Health education is given mainly regarding the community health condition and the ways of their improvement, drainage water supply, sewage and garbage disposal, environmental sanitation, etc. Thus, the community provides the broader areas for acquiring knowledge and skill of health education.

Relationship of Health Education with other aspects

The scope of health education is not just limited with to home and community and it is also not complete in itself. In its educational process, health education borrows items forms various other social sciences, e.g. psychology, sociology, education, home science, bio- chemistry, economics, etc.

Perception in learning, motivation and learning process, role of reward and punishment, etc. are related to psychology. Taboos, values, beliefs, norms, values, customs, group dynamics, etc. are related to sociology. Size of family, birth gap, reproduction, sex hygiene, etc. fall under the population education. In the same way Medicine, Anthropology, Biology, home science, Environment education, Physical education are also involved directly or indirectly in the health education. So, the scope of health education also denotes its relationships with other social science or fields of study and the various occupational areas where health education.