1. Help people to establish a healthy lifestyle: Health education is to help individuals or groups master health care knowledge and skills, establish a correct outlook on health, and voluntarily adopt and accept healthy behaviors and lifestyles, so as to achieve the purpose of improving health (the purpose of health care is to eliminate or reduce unhealthy behavioral factors, so as to achieve the purpose of preventing diseases and promoting health).
Behavior research shows that although there is an important relationship between knowledge and behavior, it is not all causal. A person's behavior is not only related to his knowledge, but also to his values and beliefs, and is more directly related to his growth and living environment.
Knowledge is the basis of behavior, but the transformation from knowledge to behavior needs certain external conditions. In addition to spreading knowledge, health education should also create conditions to meet the external conditions for knowledge to be transformed into behavior. For example, medical students all know that excessive drinking affects their health and study, but drinking more or less at class gatherings sometimes affects their health and study. This is because most students think that if you don't drink, the party will be boring and affect the atmosphere. It's not that they don't know this knowledge, but that there are unhealthy factors in their beliefs and values. To change their behavior, we need to use behavior intervention to help them get rid of this bad behavior. The function of health education is to transform health knowledge into health behavior. This is a science, which requires not only relevant knowledge, but also technology and skills, love and patience.
2. Effectively prevent chronic non-communicable diseases: Many chronic non-communicable diseases directly or indirectly affect healthy lifestyles, such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, obesity, diabetes, malignant tumors, hyperlipidemia and hypercholesterolemia. Today, 45% ~ 47% of diseases are related to behavior and lifestyle, and 60% of death factors are related to behavior and lifestyle. In the United States, unhealthy lifestyle accounts for 49% ~ 60% of the total death causes, and in China it accounts for 37.3%. Since the early 1980s, China's economy has developed steadily, people's living standards have improved, and their lifestyles have changed significantly. Some of these changes are beneficial to health, but on the other hand, factors that are not conducive to health are also increasing, such as environmental pollution. The food is so good; The intake of oil greatly exceeds the needs of the human body; With the advent of cars and computers, sports and physical activities have decreased; The increase of mental stress and the tension of interpersonal relationship; The increase in drug abuse, tobacco and alcohol consumption ... It is these unhealthy behaviors and lifestyles that have led to the increase in the prevalence of chronic non-communicable diseases in China.