The health issues that are most important today are chronic illnesses. The scope of chronic illnesses, different incapacitating disorders, and the financial cost they entail have all been well-documented. Health education and health educators will be expected to help lessen the negative effects of major health issues like obesity, accidents, mental illness, cancer, dental disease, and other neurological disturbances. They will also be expected to help people make the necessary adjustments for an active old age.
A comparison of some of the differences between methods that have proven effective in addressing the issues of acute communicable diseases and those that are available for dealing with today's problems may help to clarify the new and special role that health education plays in assisting in addressing these issues.
PATIENT PREVENTION
The methods used to treat today's health concerns are less exact and specific than those used to treat infectious diseases in the past. Public health professionals now have particular tools for preventing these diseases, including vaccination, immunization, access to clean water and milk, sanitary sewage disposal, and insect vector control. These precautions, when used correctly, have shielded individuals from a number of communicable diseases. However, there are antibiotics and other chemotherapy medicines that are particular and successful in cases where people do not take advantage of these preventative measures and develop a particular disease. There are no such specifications for preventing chronic illnesses, aging-related degenerative ailments, or accidents.
However, advances in medical research have made it feasible to prevent some of the most severe side effects of many chronic conditions. Other than modifying behavioral patterns, there is no specific preventive measure for accidents or obesity.
The differences in how these diseases manifest themselves are closely tied to the lack of precise and specialized treatments for chronic diseases. The beginning of chronic disorders, such as infectious diseases, is far more sneaky than the development of acute conditions. The motive to act in response to the steadily escalating issues of chronic disease is therefore not nearly as strong as it was in relation to the motivation to act in order to prevent communicable infections.
Education is important because chronic conditions develop gradually.
It is challenging to educate people about the concomitant bodily changes. Early disease diagnosis necessitates either routine testing or examinations when the patient is well, or developing the ability to recognize small functional changes in himself and seeking medical assistance before the condition has advanced too far.
HEALTH EDUCATION HOLDUPS
The mission of health education, which is already challenging for a variety of reasons, is made even more challenging by the lack of precise methods for preventing today's illnesses as well as by the lack of entirely efficient treatment techniques. The acts that health educators aim to encourage people to take to prevent or treat disease are less well defined than were the actions required to control the infectious diseases because control processes are ambiguous. By the same token, the link between the desired behaviors and the efficient management of chronic disease is far less clear to the general public.
