Compare and contrast health promotion and health education. Discuss how Healthy
People 2020 and the Affordable Care Act have influenced health promotion in public
health.
Health Promotion and Health Education
Public health practitioners have utilized terminologies health promotion and health
education about the various efforts made to prevent and mitigate against a given condition.
They are, in some instances, used interchangeably by some practitioners despite their varying
meanings and in contexts that they are applied. Health promotion can be described as the
science by which there is the application of public health knowledge to influence a
community or society to change their lifestyles to optimize health and wellness (Conner &
Norman, 2017) . Moreover, it requires the collaborative efforts of various sectors that are not
related to healthcare to ensure a holistic approach to health issues. It equips the individuals in
a community with the ability to increase their control over their health and provide an
improvement in their wellness. It involves the use of health, education, policy formulation,
and organization of the surrounding environmental factors and determinants of health to
achieve behavior, attitudinal, and social change in a community.
On the other hand, health education involves the dissemination of information geared
towards lifestyle change and hence improve the health of a given community. It consists of
the use of intervention measures, which increase an individual’s or community’s knowledge
of health and thus change their attitudes and behaviors to achieve wellness. It is considered a
component of health promotion (Conner & Norman, 2017) . A combination of learning
experiences based on theories is incorporated in a strategy to influence health change among
societies through their decision making. Additionally, it provides the individual,
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communities, or groups on the various intervention measures in place and the public policy
that supports the health promotion programs by dissemination of the relevant information to
the target audience (Whitehead, 2018) . As such, they lead to the promotion of healthy
behaviors, environments, and attitudes leading to improvement and quality of health.
Healthy People 2020 and Affordable Healthcare Act have influence health promotion
through the provision and implementation of policy that aims at preventive, curative, and
lifestyle changes to minimize incidence and prevalence of diseases (Cruden, Kelleher,
Kellam, & Brown, 2016) . They also address the various determinants of health and seek to
eliminate or minimize the impact of disease in society. As such, there is the formulation of
intervention measures trying to change the attitudes and behavior of individuals, which is
supported by a policy framework.
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References
Conner, M., & Norman, P. (2017). Health behaviour: Current issues and challenges.
Psychology and Health, 32(8), 895-906. doi:10.1080/08870446.2017.1336240
Cruden, G., Kelleher, K., Kellam, S., & Brown, H. (2016). Increasing the delivery of
preventive health services in public education. American Journal of Preventative
Medicine, S158-S167.
Whitehead, D. (2018). Exploring health promotion and health education in nursing. Nursing
Standard, 38-44.