Health
education is the profession of educating people about
health.[1] Areas
within this profession encompass environmental health, physical health, social
health, emotional health, intellectual health, and spiritual health.[2] It
can be defined as the principle by which individuals and groups of people learn
to behave in a manner conducive to the promotion, maintenance, or restoration
of health.
However, as there are multiple definitions of health,
there are also multiple definitions of health education. The Joint Committee on
Health Education and Promotion Terminology of 2001 defined Health Education as
"any combination of planned learning experiences based on sound theories
that provide individuals, groups, and communities the opportunity to acquire
information and the skills needed to make quality health decisions." [3] The
World Health Organization defined Health Education as "compris[ing] [of]
consciously constructed opportunities for learning involving some form of
communication designed to improve health literacy, including improving
knowledge, and developing life skills which are conducive to individual and community
health." [4]