All of the following are approaches to healtheducation:
Mass media [Ref: Park 20/e p761, 766,7681 According to Alma-Ata declaration (1978), "Health education is a process aimed at encouraging people to want to be healthy to know how to stay healthy to do what they can individually and collectively to maintain health and seek help when needed". Health education is the act of getting people to do something for themselves to attain better health. Health education involves teaching about reducing health risk factors, increasing a person' s level of wellness and taking specific protective health measures. There are 4 well-known approaches to health education: 1. Regulatory approach (Managed prevention) - There are occasions when people are indifferent to their own health thus endangering the health of the community, in which case the regulatory or legal approach seeks to protect the health of the public through the enforcement of laws and regulations. - The regulatory approach involves governmental intervention designed to alter human behaviour through regulations ranging from prohibition to imprisonment. This approach seeks change in health behaviour and improvement in health through a variety of external controls or legislations. E.g. The Child Marriage Restraint Act, compulsory seat belts 2. Service approach - The service approach involves providing necessary health services needed by the people as and when required through the spirit of volunteerism or social obligation. * - This is mainly the responsibility of the health depament and health workers both in government and non? government health agencies. - The service or administrative approach aims at providing all the health facilities needed by the community so that the people will make use of them in order to improve their own health. - The service approach will be a failure when it is not based an the "felt needs" of the people. 3. Health education approach - The health education approach involves changing the behavioral patterns of the people through planned learning experiences without conflicting with the masses. It involves proper communication and motivation of the community to make the right decision in order to attain health. - Though it is a good method, it is a slow perseverance to have permanent and enduring results. E.g. cessation of smoking, use of safe water supply, feility control. 4. Primary health care approach - The primary health care approach involves enabling individuals to become self-reliant in matters of health. - This is a radically new approach staing from the people with their full paicipation and active involvement in the planning and delivery of health services based on principals of primary health care, viz community involvement and intersectoral coordination. - The underlying objective is to help individuals become self-reliant in matters of health. Mass media is a method of health communication. (p766, 768, Park 20/e)
Service approach
Regulatory approach
Health education approach
Mass media