Leadership

The Problem: Lack of Health Education, Support, and Awareness in Underserved Schools

There is an ever-growing problem arising among today’s children involving a lack of health awareness and knowledge. Many of the most common health problems faced in the United States could have greatly reduced risk rates through the use of healthy habits. Experiences, behaviors, and habits created during childhood set the stage for a potentially healthy adulthood in the future. This is something that I learned through my HPEB 553 course, Community Health Problems. For example, rates of obesity are increasing among children, which contribute to the risk of future health problems like heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. Around one in six youth have obesity, and 17% of children aged 10-17 are obese (State of Childhood Obesity, n.d.). Without providing the proper health education, awareness, and support in schools, we are setting up children for failure. They deserve to have the knowledge necessary to take care of their bodies and have a good quality of life. Through my experience in teaching health topics to students with the Connect Lab, I learned how little exposure they would have to these concepts without the program. This time in community service truly opened my eye to how little information youth are exposed to. I want to address the problem of lack of health education in Columbia, South Carolina elementary and middle schools.

Solution

My solution is to have quarterly health education days at elementary and middle schools where outside speakers come and educate on important health topics and habits through interactive small groups and activities. This will allow students to hear about these topics from knowledgeable educators outside of their regular teachers. Small groups have proven through research to be more beneficial in learning for children than larger groups or seminars (Wasik, 2008). With a more interactive curriculum, students will be more engaged and have the opportunity to apply what they are being taught.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the health education days, two strategies will be used. Firstly, every student will fill out an opinion-based survey and a checkpoint at the end of each education day. The checkpoint survey will be given again at the beginning of the next health education day to refresh each student on previous material and see how much has been retained. The checkpoint survey will have questions related to the material covered that day. The following questions will be used for the opinion-based survey:

What is one fact that stood out to you that you learned today?
What was your favorite topic covered today?
What was your favorite activity done today?
What would you change about health education days?
What health-related topics would you like to learn more about?

I will know if they enjoyed the health education day based off of the opinion survey. The checkpoint will show how effective the teaching was. Both of these strategies can be used to make changes to the program going forward.

Evaluation

Reflection

Giving a younger generation the tools they need to live a healthy lifestyle will significantly impact the prevalence of disease in their future. With the lack of health education provided in schools currently, it is no wonder that rates of obesity and disease are so high in the United States. It is my hope to provide students with the tools they need to change the narrative of health in their lives.

Key Insight Application

Step 1

Speak to underserved elementary and middle schools in the Columbia, South Carolina area and gauge interest in the program. For those that are interested, begin to plan what days and times work best for each school’s curriculum to hold the health education days.

Step 2

Gather the speakers, called site leaders, and have them research the schools they will be at. Have them research the demographics for their schools and common health problems within them if possible. Based on this, the most efficient and tailored curriculum can be created for each school.

Step 3

Create the curriculum organization and information for each health education day. Specific learning objectives will be presented to the students at the beginning of the day and followed up with at the end. These learning objectives will be based on the greatest needs of the population and will focus on students gaining “health related knowledge, attitude, and skills” (CDC, 2023). Each health education day will briefly review former knowledge taught and build off of previous topics. Every learning experience will connect to health-enhancing topics and behaviors. The curriculum will be very orderly so that the learning objectives can be met easily (CDC, 2023).

Step 4

Site leaders will begin the health education days, meeting after each one to discuss progress and make adjustments.

Implementation

Step 5

Adjustments will be transferred into the curriculum and added into future health education days.

Aspects of the implementation of health education days directly relates with my key insight 1, every community has different needs for health education. Even among schools in the same district, every community is different and has a vast array of students and backgrounds. The use of the evaluation tactic will allow schools to have tailored programs to best fit their needs. This is similar to what I experienced through creating a PPP in my HPEB 300 course, Introduction to Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior. We found ways to implement surveys and receive feedback on aspects of our health promotion program so that we could best reach our audience. Using this same tactic for the health education days will help me serve the needs that every school community has for health education.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023, March 20). What works in schools: Quality Health Education. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/whatworks/what-works-health-education.htm#:~:text=Health%20education%20is%20a%20fundamental,healthy%20behaviors%20throughout%20their%20lives.

State of Childhood Obesity. (2023, October 26). https://stateofchildhoodobesity.org/demographic-data/ages-10-17/#:~:text=Roughly%20one%20in%20six%20youth,10%20to%2017%20had%20obesity.

When fewer is more: Small groups in early childhood classrooms. (n.d.). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226170009_When_Fewer_Is_More_Small_Groups_in_Early_Childhood_Classrooms