Overall I found this course to be a positive learning experience, as it was highly beneficial and inspirational. I have gained new knowledge and skills which I believe will be of great advantage to me throughout my future career as a public health educator. Programs are developed by health educators for healthy behavior and lifestyle education (Student Scholarships, 2009). This course has given me the opportunity to select a topic of personal interest within the health field, and explore it from a health promotion programming lens to understand what is involved in the evaluation, implementation, and design of programs. “Numerous studies suggest that SDH accounts for between 30-55% of health outcomes” (World Health Organization, 2022, p.1). Civil society and all sectors need to act towards inequity reduction and health enhancement where it becomes critical for the social determinants of health to be targeted in health promotion initiatives (World Health Organization, 2022). Profound impacts may be produced when several theories intertwine within an intervention, and the poor use of theory within an intervention contributes to ineffectiveness according to evidence (Glanz, n.d.). The infographic and e-portfolio assignments in this course have further developed my computer design skills, and have increased my confidence and motivation to experiment deeper with new online platforms and technologies as I pursue my master’s degree.
An exciting discovery that I have made in this course is related to my professional writing skills. Writing at a graduate level is equipped with higher expectations and prior to this course, I felt as if my writing was lacking in substance, flow, and presentation. Through the assignment feedback, I now feel more confident in applying and modifying my writing within any academic and/or professional setting. It was also exciting to understand how the push for a worldwide movement in public health addressed through the International Conference on Health Promotion has ventured so much fame and success (Government of Canada, 2017). The delivery of public health and the concept of health in society have been dramatically advanced by the Ottawa Charter (Vinko et al., 2016). “Health promotion has become a vital, if not leading, component of modern public health in the last 30 years” (Vinko et al., 2016, para.1). With respect to diabetic individuals, the Ottawa Charter’s five action areas were applied in Taiwan to a health promotion program (Lin et al., 2021). Health promotion was trained to professionals in healthcare to allow individuals with diabetes to attain home care of good quality, and it was found that individuals with diabetes and staff of the hospital exhibited health-promoting behaviors that were enhanced (Lin et al., 2021).
The learning moment that was the most powerful for me was learning about the criticality of an evidence-based approach, as I have realized that it is a tool that I will have to familiarize myself with throughout my career as a public health educator.
References
Glanz, K. (n.d.). Social and behavioral
Government of Canada. (2017). Ottawa charter for health promotion: an international conference
on health promotion. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-
promotion/population-health/ottawa-charter-health-promotion-international-conference-on-
health-promotion.html
Lin, M.-H., Chiu, S.-Y., Ho, W.-C., & Huang, H.-Y. (2021). Application of the Ottawa charter five
priority areas of action for public health to an institution-wide diabetes care promotion.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(4).
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041543
Student Scholarships. (2009). Health educators- what they do.
https://studentscholarships.org/salary/616/health_educators.php
Vinko, M., Robnik, M., Blenkus, M.G. (2016). 10 years after the Ottawa charter: is it still
relevant in the face of future challenges for health promotion? https://eurohealthnet-
health-
promotion/#:~:text=The%20Ottawa%20Charter%20provided%20a,the%20last%2030%20years1
World Health Organization. (2022). Social determinants of health. https://www.who.int/health-
topics/social-determinants-of-health#tab=tab_1
Comments