First, health education.
Through planned, organized and systematic social education activities, health education urges people to consciously change unhealthy behaviors and related factors affecting health behaviors, eliminate or reduce risk factors affecting health, prevent diseases, promote health and improve quality of life.
The core issue of health education is to urge individuals or groups to change unhealthy behaviors and lifestyles, especially organizational behaviors. It is true that changing behavior and lifestyle is an arduous and complicated process. Many bad behaviors are not personal responsibility, nor are they transferred by personal wishes, because many bad behaviors or lifestyles are influenced by social customs, cultural background, economic conditions, health services, etc. Wider behaviors involve living conditions, such as living conditions, eating habits, working conditions, market supply, social norms, environmental conditions, etc. Therefore, in order to change behavior, we must also improve the related factors that are beneficial to health, such as obtaining sufficient resources, effective community leaders and social support, and self-help skills. In addition, we must adopt various methods to help people understand their health and make their own choices to improve their health, instead of forcing them to change certain behaviors. Therefore, health education must be a planned, organized and systematic educational process in order to achieve the expected goals.
Up to now, many people equate health education with health promotion. There is no doubt that the dissemination of health knowledge is very necessary. However, when individuals and groups make healthy choices, they need to be supported by policies, material, social and economic environments that are conducive to health, master self-care skills, and obtain certain health services. Otherwise, it is difficult to change their behavior. Therefore, health promotion that simply spreads health knowledge is an important means of health education, but it does not mean health education. Health education should provide knowledge, skills and services necessary for behavior change, so as to promote behavior change of individuals, groups and society.
Second, health promotion.
The concept of health promotion is broader than health education. 1986 The Ottawa Charter issued by the first international conference on health promotion held in Ottawa, Canada pointed out: "Health promotion is a process that urges people to improve, maintain and improve their own health." This definition expresses the purpose and concept of health promotion, and also emphasizes the scope and methods.
The Ottawa Charter also puts forward five strategies to promote health:
1. Formulate healthy public policies. Health promotion goes beyond health care. It puts health issues on the agenda of leaders at various departments and levels, so that they can understand the impact of their decisions on health consequences and take health responsibilities.
Health promotion policy consists of various complementary aspects, including policies, regulations, finance, taxation and organizational changes.
2. Creating a favorable environment Human beings are inseparable from the environment in which they live, which is the basis of adopting a social ecological approach to health. Health promotion lies in creating a safe, comfortable, satisfactory and pleasant living and working environment. Any health promotion strategy must be put forward: protecting nature, creating a good environment and protecting natural resources.
3. Strengthening community action health promotion is to achieve the purpose of promoting health through concrete and effective community actions, including determining the health problems that need to be solved first, making decisions, designing strategies and implementing them. In this process, the core issue is to give communities the right to be masters of their own affairs and actively participate in and control their own destiny.
4. Developing Personal Skills Health Promotion supports personal and social development by providing information, health education and improving life skills. The purpose of doing this is to enable people to maintain their health and living environment more effectively and make healthy choices.
5. Adjust the direction of health services. The role of health departments is not only to provide clinical and therapeutic services, but also to adhere to the direction of health promotion. Adjusting the direction of health service also requires paying more attention to the transformation of health research and professional education and training, and taking the total demand of a complete person as the service object.
To sum up, the concept of health promotion is more complete than health education, because health promotion covers health education and ecological factors (environmental factors and administrative means). Health promotion refers to the integration of all education and ecological support that can promote the transformation of behavior and living conditions to health. Health promotion is the result of health education development. Health promotion is the essence of the new public health method and the key element of the global strategy of "health care for all".