Keywords
global health care scene - health educator - health care information
Introduction
Health educators are important professionals in facilitating knowledge transfer, understanding,
and mobilization of health care information. Health educators impact wellness and
advocacy practices that impact individual and population health. Alinier[1] further clarifies that a health educator designs, evaluates, and disseminates and
then presents culturally appropriate, high-quality, and relevant health care materials,
skills and information that would change the ideals, beliefs, values, and culture
of a community to conform to the set standards. Health educators, not withstanding,
also conduct the planning and implementation of programs and other treatment activities
that address patient needs. These include conducting eligibility test on the enrolment
of individuals into the infectious disease programs as well as those who are scheduled
for specialized procedures.
The health education practice therefore requires the potential candidate to be knowledgeable
in psychology and human development to make them more appropriate to the challenging
roles of health education and facilitation roles.[2] The global health scene has transitioned from the need to empower the people through
education to the extent that these educators must be the facilitators and mobilizers
to impact the social, health care, and human development changes.
Different health care facilities and state department across the world have established
community health education programs that are meant to enhance knowledge and skills
transfer and instill positive perspectives on the community. Through health facilitators,
these community health education programs have conducted community outreach and sensitization
programs that often change the mindset and service provision to the communities.[3] It is thus essential that health educators are impacted with effective and efficient
information on contemporary health care issues, which they in turn pass to their audiences.
In the contemporary times, health care educators such as nurses and other mobilizers
have transformed into facilitators to ensure that the information and skills are effectively
transferred to the communities that need them. The transition from health educators
to facilitators follows the improvement in communication and technology field, which
allows for more research and dissemination practices. Facilitators should be more
concerned about the cultural acceptability of their activities to the audience based
on the anticipated outcomes. In this light most health care institutions have developed
mechanisms and measures that would enable health educators to transition to health
facilitators.
Transitions in the Global Health Scene: Emerging Noncommunicable Disease and Input
of Health Educators
The global health care industry is in constant change, especially regarding the issues
of advocacy, social change campaign, and the use of technology, which significantly
impacts health education. The changes in global health care scene further influence
the changes in the responsibilities, job descriptions, and levels of knowledge that
are expected of health educators. This necessitates a need for health educators to
adjust to the changes in the global health care environment to be efficient and effective
in their roles and duties of impacting change to communities that are hard hit with
health care issues.
In the recent times, the world has experienced with infectious diseases such as Ebola
and HIV/AIDS as well as other globally challenging conditions such as diabetes and
cancer,[4] whereas on the other hand, human and political factors such as civil wars and political
instabilities in some parts of the world have posed humanitarian crisis, which call
for different approaches in their management and communication. In this regard, there
are increased challenges to health care provision and increased vulnerability of communities
to emerging and reemerging health care issues.
Due to these changes, the health care education strategies have also shifted consequently
to those that require urgency, information accessibility, and the need to improve
the cultural sensitivity of the education processes used. It is at this point that
health educators are challenged to transition to facilitators to ensure enhancement
of the potential of the communities they serve to become the agents of change. For
instance, the widespread Ebola infection in West Africa was a critical situation in
the global health care, which meant that global agencies, such as the World Health
Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and European
Union (EU), and governments had to work toward collective approach.[5] This included collective collaboration and common training of health care practitioners
and educators to prepare them on ways through which they can manage the Ebola scare
and educate the victims and the vulnerable communities. There was the need for facilitators
rather than educators to impact knowledge on the people and to mobilize them toward
accepting the change message and to embrace the prescribed modes of lifestyle to reduce
the spread of infection.
In some parts of the world such as Syria and South Sudan, there has been an increase
in humanitarian crises that mainly affect children and women. These include hunger,
infections, bullet wound, and starvation from deprivation of basic rights. From a
global perspective, the health care scenario now tends to be similar, and the challenges
are uniform and require urgent response from the concerned parties. This further impacts
the approaches that health care educators and the industry must make to ensure that
the needy communities are able to be reached.[6] There is thus the increased responsibility for the evolution in the role of health
educators to enable them to address the challenges emerging in the global health care
arena. The transition toward health facilitation is informed by the increased need
for flexibility in response to the global health issues such as those impacting lives
of refugees, chronic disease clients, or Ebola victims. Furthermore, there is the
need for improved competence and effectiveness in facilitating knowledge transfer
through evidence-based approaches, which recommend transformation of health educators
into facilitators.
Educators need quick, efficient, effective, flexible, and creative responses to the
challenges that abound as well as gaining the required competence to facilitate health
education to the concerned communities. Health educators are now required to conduct
training and therapy sessions to communities or to community leaders to ensure that
they are efficiently informed about the potential harm and they can in turn educate
their communities.[7] This consequential transfer of information follows the need for the communities
to have the ability to understand the challenges that impact their health status and
to be able to eradicate or prevent the occurrence of such health hazard such as HIV/AIDS
or lifestyle knowledge that could reduce the spread of chronic diseases. These dynamics
have changed the roles of health educators to become facilitators who can train, research,
and transfer information through evidence-based, effective and efficient channels,
and technology to reach the people.[8] The demanding nature of the current practices require new skills, levels of training
and knowledge, and possible adaptability to ensure that educators are efficient facilitators
in the ever-changing and complex global health scene.
The health landscape is increasingly becoming complex with the advent of chronic diseases.
Health education strategies that must be directed to support and enhance behavior
change. Health educators should increasingly align their education efforts though
a facilitatory rather than didactic approach to enhance client capacity for self-care.
Communities require information to make decisions (empowerment) and to enhance their
understanding of the concepts relating to chronic conditions discussed previously.
Therefore, the methodologies that health educators use should focus on behavior change
and the potentiality of the people to align their behaviors to the ways that are prescribed
by the facilitators.[9] Through facilitation, there is likely to be increased motivation and eventual feeling
that the community's behavior is controlled to reduce their susceptibility to the
challenges that may impact their health status. This enhances the need for facilitation
approach as the most ideal method of impacting behavioral change toward infectious
conditions and other chronic diseases that could impede the community development
and put risk to humanity.
Due to the changes in the global health care scene, there is need for increased and
improved use of facilitation approach as opposed to the didactic approach. Through
facilitation, there is increased knowledge transfer to the targeted community and
a target toward behavioral change. Dieckmann et al[10] further reiterate that facilitators can work with the community leadership and groups
to inform them and train them of the expected lifestyle change. The targeted communities
will therefore feel part of the social change campaign and have effective cultural
acceptance to the information. Furthermore, community groups can be induced on visual
and technological platforms that would improve the knowledge transfer and thus impact
positive change. Facilitation approach allows for the training of educators and community
groups on the best approaches/practices that they can use to achieve the long-term
eradication of health care issues that impact the lives of the community.[11] Through the facilitation approach, health care educators would need to enhance their
management skills by upgrading their skills and potentiality to enhance their suitability.
The global health care scene is experiencing challenges that call for increased training
and upgrading of health educators’ approaches. Health care educators should focus
their energy on strategies that enhance the possibility of eradicating the infectious
and chronic conditions discussed previously. Health educators would therefore be well
advised to engage in upgrading activities that would enhance their ability to be effective
facilitators. The facilitation approach has the potential to markedly improve management
of health care issues through effective health engagement hinging on behavioral change
approaches and social change campaigns. The resultant is more likely to yield in the
long run, sustainable health care management benefits for conditions such as Ebola,
diabetes, cancer, and HIV/AIDS. It simply means that health educators need to rethink
and realign their roles to be relevant in an evolving work environment. Adaptation
to a new role is therefore key for health educators to reengage for change.
