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In the health education field the greatest barriers to multiculturalism confronting health educators are a lack of: personal lack of awareness, research, available health education programming and pre-professional training. Why are these barriers?

Lack of personal awareness is a barrier because the health care provider is completely unaware of the reality they are living in. In order to solve a problem one must be aware of the problem. If a ethno-American is treating a Hispanic-American and is completely unaware of potential language, cultural or religious barriers they will not be able to effectively communicate or perhaps even treat the individual.

A lack of research is a barrier because accurate research contributes to accurate communication and an accurate solution. A lack of health education programming of a multicultural nature is a barrier because people need to hear important information in their "heart language" in order for it to impact their lives. Pictures are good but even pictures can be culturally inappropriate in some situations. Health education programming in English should be evaluated and reproduced by native speakers of other minority groups in order to avoid misunderstandings.

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This discussion is centered around numerous questions regarding the health education field. The current effectiveness and future improvement of health education and services are explored. Approximately 2,400 words of original text.

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In the health education field the greatest barriers to multiculturalism confronting health educators are a lack of: personal lack of awareness, research, available health education programming and pre-professional training. Why are these barriers?

Lack of personal awareness is a barrier because the health care provider is completely unaware of the reality they are living in. In order to solve a problem one must be aware of the problem. If a ethno-American is treating a Hispanic-American and is completely unaware of potential language, cultural or religious barriers they will not be able to effectively communicate or perhaps even treat the individual.

A lack of research is a barrier because accurate research contributes to accurate communication and an accurate solution. A lack of health education programming of a multicultural nature is a barrier because people need to hear important information in their "heart language" in order for it to impact their lives. Pictures are good but even pictures can be culturally inappropriate in some situations. Health education programming in English should be evaluated and reproduced by native speakers of other minority groups in order to avoid misunderstandings.

How does professionalism relate to public health education and what are some traits for this profession?

We tend to listen to people that we perceive as being professional or having understanding/mastery of a particular concept. Because public health education (especially in schools) can be an embarrassing topic to discuss, the temptation is to make it humorous. This typically backfires and individuals dismiss the importance of the message because of the unprofessional nature of the messenger. My son had this experience in 8th grade health class. The teacher was very unprofessional. He was not a dedicated, enthusiastic teacher. He mostly showed movies in class. He talked jokingly about drug use, premarital sexual relations and obesity. The result was that the kids failed to respect him as a teacher and they also disregarded the message he had to share with them.

Traits of professionalism as it relates to health education would be: knowledge of the subject matter, the ability to make it applicable to the target audience, a life-style that models the message that is spoken, an ability to be empathetic with individuals who have not in the past or are not in the present following the guidelines of healthy living.

How would the strategic health communication campaign model be used to address health problems? I know there are 5 steps in the model: Planning, Use of Theory, communication analysis, implementation and evaluation stage.

Planning - This includes research as well as developing a plan. Perhaps the most important thing to determine is what the ultimate goal is. Too many times money is thrown at problems before the ultimate goal has been decided upon. Sometimes the wrong problem is targeted and this results in the most important problems remaining unresolved.

Use of Theory - While use of theory may be important in some scenarios, the reality is that theory does not need to be relied upon in most cases in health education. If individuals would learn and then follow a handful of basic facts about health and hygiene they could live much healthier lives.

Communication Analysis-The target audience needs to be addressed and analyzed so that the message that is communicated will be accepted or at least considered by them. What the message is as well as how the message will be communicated are important considerations.

Implementation- How the message is delivered is important to consider. We have all probably seen health education videos that were out of date and therefore invalid. Instead ...

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