What is the need for health education?

Answer 1

Going back through history, doctors were unaware about how most diseases spread. "Cure" relied mostly on bed rest and basic measures, such as reducing fever through wiping the person's body with medicinal rubbing alcohol and giving teas and hot soups. Herbs and plants (from which we get many prescription medications today) were used, but they did not have standardized doses. As a result of these unknowns, "cure" was hit and miss at best. People died of common diseases. Pneumonia and bronchitis often killed, much more frequently than today. Waterborne illnesses like typhoid fever were known, but no one yet recognized how the organism was spread (through dirty or contaminated water).

As physicians discovered the exact organisms that caused bacterial infections, and with the discovery of penicillin just before World War II, doctors began to have an upper hand against many communicable illnesses. But, more work was need at the time since people were still dying from diseases that were misunderstood. For example, syphilis through the 1800s through the 1960s still caused insanity in many adults, leading to lost lives spent in chronic care psychiatric wards.

But as penicillin and public education took the lead in health care, doctors, nurses, and patients became better equipped to not only fight illness once it occurred, but to prevent illness from occurring or spreading. Communities developed water treatment and sewage facilities at the insistence of public health boards. Isolation was used more frequently, separating the healthy from the sick. Vaccinations against common childhood illnesses saved millions of lives and eradicated many of these killer diseases. Hand-washing, probably the number one factor against the spread of illnesses, has now become standard practice.

Public health education remains the number one priority in current health care. Old wives' tales still persist, unfortunately, in many areas of the USA and in the world. Stigmas in underdeveloped nations continue, resulting in millions of children becoming orphans when their parents die of AIDS due to stigma and lack of treatment. STDs continue to infect many in the USA as well, especially for sexually active young girls and women. Undetected and untreated cervical infections put millions of females at risk for Cervical cancer and infertility. Since males often carry yeast infections and STDs without symptoms, it is imperative that public health focuses on instructing males about the types of diseases they can carry to their sexual partners and to know they must be periodically tested, even if they have no symptoms.

Although penicillin was the miracle drug of the mid-1900s, the public must become educated about the risks of the overuse of antibiotics. MRSA, a flesh-eating bacteria, was a bacteria we used to be able to combat with regular antibiotics. But it learned how to survive and fight against drugs, so now it has become a "super bug" monster of our times. As well, many parents have refused to vaccinate their children against communicable diseases, and so Measles in particular has begun to make a rebound into USA cities.

Public health has centered for the last 10 years on changing personal health habits through diet, exercise, smoking cessation, and routine checkups. With the number of health threats we face today within a growing population, health education must be multifaceted.

Answer 2

What is the need for health education