The health education programme.

Abstract

Do not let us assume because we have this difficulty that it follows that the aims of health educators need be either vague or impractical. Many of us, perhaps I might say the majority of us, have a similar difficulty in relation to general education; we accept as a fact that education is desirable, but if suddenly asked why this is so we might have to give considerable thought to the preparation of a reasoned and conclusive answer to this question. Health is not mere absence of disease; being healthy entails physical and mental accord with one’s surroundings and therefore has social as well as individual application. Not being ill is obviously not the same thing as being in bounding, vigorous health. This concept of positive health is something to aim at and carries with it the social implication of complete adjustment to one’s surroundings in the home, in the place of work and in the community generally. If we accept this as the real meaning of health it becomes evident that the emphasis will vary from civilization to civilization, from nation to nation and from community to community. The aims of the health educator towards positive health in a primitive backward tribe will not be those of the worker in Mayfair; the ultimate aim may be the same but the immediate approach quite different. There is then no universally applicable method of health teaching, the primitive community needs an approach of the infant class variety and the highly civilized community demands a type of teaching more applicable to its adult status. ’