HEALTH EDUCATION

1947 Definition (WHO)

A state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of
disease and infirmity.
Health education
Definition:
A process with intellectual psychological and social dimensions relating to activities
which increase the ability of people to make well informed decisions affecting their
personal and community well being.
Wellness
A continuing process in which a person learns to value his/her physical, emotional and
spiritual self and reaffirms that value throughout life by learning and carrying our
attitudes and behaviour that help the person recognize and achieve his/her potential.
Health education has three components
1. Promotion of health:- promoting behaviour that maintains health such as:
eating habits
- Sexual behaviour
- Drinking habits
- Drug habits
- Other types of life style such as exercises/recreation.
2. Prevention of diseases
- Primary prevention immunizable diseases.
- Secondary prevention seek prompt when ill at a recognized health
institution.
3. Rehabilitation
- After illness/accident
- Retain the person in order for the person to continue being fully functional at
his/her level.
- After drug addiction
- .
Communicating for health agent of change

Definition of communication
Information
Education

package (IEC)

Communication
These are necessary components of effective health and development programmes. Even
the best designed are doomed to failure or will produce the most meager results if target
populations are not consulted, informed, educated and mobilized. Too often communication
is a missing link in the health and development process.
Channels of communication.
1. Person to person
2. Print media: posters, newspapers, newsletters (can be organized quarterly, monthly, or
annually), pamphlets, leaflets, circulars and memos.

3. Electric media: - radio lessons, spot messages, television is both audio and visual,
peaches decision makers (spot messages, films, professional view), email internet.
4. Media is really powerful and can build or de.destroy others: songs, drama, role plays,
skits, poems, demonstrations, still pictures, symbols etc.
Barriers of communication
1. Age
2. Language
3. Gender
4. Social, culture, economic/religion
5. Poor human relations
6. Education
Dramatic improvements in health services have been stimulated by effective
communication efforts.
An IEC component must be built in health and development programmes from the
planning stage onwards if they are to be successful.
As powerful as mass media are, they cannot replace national institutions and
community based organizations which serve as channels for information and
instruments for the health and development fields.
Increased resources must be allocated to IEC activities and decision makers must
come to see that investment in communications is cost effective. This helps reduce
morbidity and mortality of diseases.

Give the community feedback and you also require feedback from the community.
Methods of planning
Replanning
Strengths
Weakness eg poor public relations, a little man power opportunities make use of
public gatherings eg. Churches.
Threats political, natural catastrophies eg El Nino.
Principles that must be known about any disease
Cause
Prevalence
Transmission mode
Signs and symptoms of disease.
Methods of prevention
Strategies of planning
Identify the problem and the size of it (quantifying).
Give the time limit you expect to take to overcome it.
Evaluate and gather money manpower material required. Define number and from
what disciplines the manpower is to be from.
How much money is needed?
What material are necessary and how many? Where do they apply? Is to what is the target
population.

Youth
Adult opinion leaders, government, NGO, CBO, private sector.
Establish partnerships with them.

Implementation of the plan

Being together MMMT is enough and that strategies put in place are working.
At the end of a given time period, evaluate the level of success and try to find out what
went wrong.
Use sensitive methods of evaluation.
Use the communitys feedback to evaluate success rate.
Must provide feedback to the community and members of the network you are working
with.

SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS

Genital ulcer diseases
Herpes simplex very painful
Syphilis painless ulcer.
Chancroid

Discharge diseases
1. Gonorrhea yellowish discharge- difficult to diagnose in women without lab tests.
2. Chlamydia discharge clear and nylon like.
3. Canidiasis Candida are normal flora which increase in pregnancy. Discharge appears
as small white freckles which when scrapped off cause bleeding.
4. Trichomoniasis smelly, frothy, greenish discharge with itching.
5. Gonorrhoea and Chlamydia cause opthalmia neonatorium in babies.
Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID)
Prolonged ambiguous abdominal (lower) plan
Transmission route
1. Sexual intercourse heterosexual , homosexual
2. Blood borne eg. AIDS, IV drug use, circumsion.
3. Mother to child syphilis, gonorrhea, Aids (25-40% of children of positive mother have
HIV).
4. Deep kissing
5. Occupational accidents due to not taking septic measures.
Prevention
1. Screen blood for transfusion
2. Protect self while doing invasive maneuvers eg. Gloves, gowns, masks etc.
3. Needle exchange programmes with drug abuse users.
4. Screen mothers for infection eg. Syphilis, Chlamydia, gonorrhea etc and Rx with
tetracycline 1%, ophthalmic. Antiretrovirals eg AZT to pregnant mothers.
5. Sterilize all equipment
6.
a. Abstain
b. Be faithful mutual monogamy 70% of married women get it from their
Partners)
- There can only be secondary virginity.
- Reduce sexual partners number.
c. Condoms- use condoms properly and always discard. Discard five years after
manufacture and avoid exposure to heat.

WHAT EVERY FAMILY COMMUNITY NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT TIMING BIRTHS

Ways to communicators
- It is not yet widely known what birth spacing is one of the most powerful ways of
improving health of women and children.
- Births, which are too many or too close or to women who are too old or too young are
responsible for approximately one third of all infant deaths, worldwide.
The prime messages
- Becoming pregnant before the age of 18 years or after the age of 35, increases the
health risks for both the mother and child.
- The risk of death for young children is increased by about 50% if the space between is
less than 2 years.
- Having more than four children increases the health risks of pregnancy and childbirth.
- Family planning gives couples the choice of when to start having children, how many to
have, how far apart to have them and when to stop.
Supporting information
Every year, over half a million women die from problems associated with
pregnancy. Childbirth, leaving behind over one million motherless children. Most of
these deaths could be prevented by acting on todays knowledge about the
importance of planning pregnancies.
For health reasons alone, no girl should become pregnant before the age of
eighteen.
A woman is not physically ready to begin bearing children until she is about
eighteen years of age. Babies born to women younger than eighteen are more
likely is born too early and to weigh too little at birth such babies are much more
likely to die in the first years of life. The risk to the mothers own health is also
greater.
After the age of thirty five, he health risks of pregnancy and childbirth begins to
increase again is a woman is over thirty five, and has had four or more previous
pregnancies, and then another pregnancy is a serious risk to their own health and
that of her unborn child.
The risk of death for young children increase by about 50% if the space births are
less than 2 years.
For the health of both mothers and children parents should wait until their youngest
child is at least two years old before having another baby.
Children born too close together do not usually develop as well, physically, or
mentally as children born at least two years apart.
One of the greatest threats to the health of and growth of a child under the age of
tow is the birth of a new baby.
Breastfeeding stops too suddenly, and the mother has less time to prepare the
special foods a young child needs. Also she may not be able to give the older child
the care and attention he or she needs especially during illness. As a result, the
child often falls to grow and develop properly.
The mothers baby needs two years to recover fully form pregnancy and childbirth.
The risk to the mothers health is therefore greater if the next birth follows closely
upon the last.
The mother needs to give herself time to regain her strength back.

If a woman becomes pregnant before she fully recovers, there is higher chance of
a premature delivery and delivery of low births weight babies.

Family planning services

Can be obtained from:
Referral hospitals
Provincial hospitals
District hospitals
Private hospitals
health centers
Community based health services (CBD).

SAFE MOTHERHOOD
Note to communicators
Everyday more than 1000 women die from problems related to bearing children.
Government has a particular responsibility to train people to assist at childbirth to make
available routine prenatal services and to provide special care for women who have
serious problems during pregnancy in child birth.
The prime message
1. The risks of childbirth can be drastically reduced by going to the nearest health worker
for regular check-ups during pregnancy.
2. A trained person should assist at every birth.
3. To reduce the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, all families should know the
warning signs.
4. Unless she is already overweight, a woman needs more food during pregnancy. All
pregnant women need more rest.
5. Spacing pregnancies at least two years apart avoiding pregnancies below eighteen or
above thirty-five years, drastically reduces the dangers of child bearing.
6. Girls who are healthy and well fed during their own childhood and teenage years have
fewer problems in pregnancy and childbirth.
Supporting information
1. The risks of childbirth can be drastically reduced by going to the nearest health worker
for regular check-ups during pregnancy.
AIDS
Spread aggravated by:
Natural need.
It is difficult to get the infection attitude.
Hard to quit addictive.
Sex is cheap and sweet.
It accidental attitude.
Death is unavoidable attitude.
Man has to prove himself attitude.
Drug use.
Proving love.
Peer pressure.

Dont believe AIDS is her

Problems faced with AIDS Orphans

1. Lack of education
2. Lack of parental care
3. Lack of shelter
4. Lack of food
5. Lack of clothing
child labor
6. Prostitution
7. Child abuse
8. Lack of proper health care.
Impact
1. Increased crime rate
2. Increased poverty
3. Street children
4. Malnutrition
5. Morbidity increase and high mortality rates
6. Poor health
7. Increased illiteracy
8. Reduced productivity
9. Lack of national development decrease economic loss.
10. Disintegration of society
11. Increase insecurity.
Solutions
1. Improve moral standards.
2. Enhance establishment of strong community ties.
3. Develop cheaper antiretroviral drugs.
4. Mutual monogamy to reduce AIDS cases.