Health Education or Health Care Promotion
The schools are a logical, systematic, and efficient means available for educating the nation's youth in the area of health. They provide an avenue for reaching over 46 million students each year, as well as over five million instructional and support staff (Journal of School Health, 1991, p. 298). As a strong social institution, the school provides a way to reach children during their impressionable years in order to assist them in building habits that will support their health during adulthood. But do educators have the time and resources to take on this responsibility? Already overburdened administrators and teachers struggle to fulfill the functions in rearing the nation's children that have been fragmented by unsettling changes in societal structure. Can the addition of health concerns be beneficial? It is the purpose of this paper to take the position that health promotion is a welcome reform movement in education, one that integrates all parts of well-being for the student.
The 1990s are an important decade for public health and education. In September of 1990, Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services released Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives, a directive which enumerates 3000 national health objectives which will enhance the nation's ability to improve and control our health prospects (McGinnis & DeGraw, 1991, p. 292). Many of those objectives relate to policies and programs at the federal, state, and local levels, and many relate to school health functions.
Partnerships between various groups have been a feature of the health promotion effort. The American School Health Association represents an excellent example of a successful partnership among professionals from various disciplines, bringing together nurses, physicians, parents, and health educators. These efforts reinforce the interrelati...