Introduction
Education alone is not sufficient in creating healthy population wide changes. Individualist theory suggests that public health changes require communal approach, while education is aimed at specific people or groups. Economics and the political environment also influence wide public health change through resource allocations. Consequently, cultural and historical backgrounds are vital in shaping behaviour changes. Finally, individual choices determine the success of public health interventions.
Main Discussion
Achieving public health requires multidimensional approaches. Education alone is insufficient in providing society with an efficient and effective health behaviour change. Healthy behaviour changes involve cultural, social, economic, biological and environmental determinants. Consequently, political climate and national development status immensely contribute to human wellbeing. As a result, education as a sole approach has very little influenced people’s health. Governments have applied education strategies in developing better health care reforms. However, education is just one of several other pillars that prompt wide health behaviour change.
Green and Labonte identified the importance of communal interventions in individualist theory to social dimensions. They say, “Establishing an arts festival (the cultural dimension) and a job creation programme (the economic dimension) are both interventions to improve social capital” (Green & Labonte, 2010). Cultural pillars and economic resources distributions strongly influence behaviour changes.
Culture affects eating habit, mode of dressing and ability to seek medical attention. Cultural backgrounds of African-American have more contributed to the poor health among the group in comparison to those of the whites. As a result, their burden of diseases is higher than that of the whites (ABS, 2008). Community cultural backgrounds influence healthy decisions more than education approach does. Evidently, people are very resistant to change; thus education cannot successfully make behaviour changes in regard to public health. Australian natives and aborigines have their own ways of understanding and interpreting diseases. In many ways, education systems have failed to incorporate the modern treatments with the tradition approaches to create acceptability among these groups.
Bodenheimer & Grumbach (2005) have identified gender as another factor that influences public health. Moreover, they have shown how ethnicity, social class and gender interact in shaping people’s health. Decisions made by men vary a lot from those by women in healthcare. Men’s role in the society as family breadwinners exposes them to more risks as compared to women. Consequently, women less often seek for medical advices as compared to men. As a result, women in the developed countries tend to have higher life span as compared to men. In contrast, women in the developing nations have a shorter life span as compared to their male counterparts (Baum, 2008). Education cannot change gender for gaining better healthy decisions in the society. Consequently, the government should implement well laid political structure to develop health systems in developing countries for women to access affordable health.
Education cannot create population healthy behaviour changes based on historical facts. Indigenous Australians are shown to be poorer in health as compared to non-indigenous due to their historical development. Despite the fact that education programs have run among the communities since the colonial powers changed the native lifestyle, their health status has drastically dropped.
Individualistic approaches show that healthy behaviours are caused by personal decisions rather than stimulated responses. Beaglehole and Bonita noted, “The prevailing ideology in most countries still favours individual responsibility over collective responsibility,” (Beaglehole and Bonita, 2004, P.145). Education system is a collective approach that, according to Beaglehole and Bonita, fails in meeting wide public health behaviour change. In the social learning theory, Dzenis says, “People are not likely to try/change their behaviour if they are not confident they will succeed; people are more likely to change their behaviour if they think they will not succeed (Beaglehole and Bonita, 2004, p.115).
As a result, education cannot make people change unless they have the confidence that they will change themselves. In the health belief model, one is only able to change his or her behaviour based on his/her personal decision driving him or her to see a reason to change. An individual must be able to see benefits, which should outweigh the health risks for behaviour change, in order for the first to be accepted. Education can only act as a wake-up but not as a facilitator to healthy behaviour change. Finally, people will embrace change only when they feel they have the competency and power to do it successfully. As Talbot puts it, “They must feel competent in their ability to overcome the social and emotional barriers to achieving behaviour change (Talbot & Verrinder, 2010, P. 202).
Conclusion
From the study materials, it is evident that education alone cannot be useful in creating wide public health behaviour change. For changes to occur in a society, there must be economic and political environments that facilitate resource allocation towards desirable change. It should be socially and culturally accepted for its success. Consequently, public health behaviour change should positively influence individual choices for their acceptance in the society. While developing a public health change program, there must be an enabling physical environment. As a result, education alone has failed in altering biological and cultural factors that influence individual changes.
References
ABS. (2008).Women’s Income, Australian Social Trends, 2008. Web.
Baum, F. (2008). The New Public Health (3rd ed.). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Beaglehole, R., & Bonita, R. (2004). Public Health at the Crossroads: Achievements and prospects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bodenheimer, T. & Grumbach, K. (2005). Understanding Health Policy: A clinical Approach (4th ed.). New York: Lange Medical Books, McGraw-Hill.
Green, J, & Labonte, R. (2010). Critical Perspectives in Public Health. London: Routledge.
Talbot, L., & Verrinder, G. (2010). Promoting Health: A primary Healthcare Approach (4th ed.). Chatswood, NSW: Elsevier.