Ethical Aspects of Health Education

Ethical Aspects of Health Education
Five major area of ethical concern to health educator
The Example Set by the Health Educator

The Balance of Control and Power Between Professionals and Client

Individual Responsibilities versus Social Change

Justification for Intervention
Conflicting Interest

The Example of Health Educator

 The health educators should be a good example for the patient because they have a professional responsibility to consider their own health and way in which it could be improved this is because Client is more likely to accept help and advice from health professional who set a good example

 Health professional are teaching by example so if the health educator has unhealthy habits such as smoking how he can give advise to the smoker patient to stop smoking

 If the health educator has unhealthy life style this will increase the stress level on him as educator and decrease his credibility in the eyes of clients

 If there is an obvious health problem it is best to make an open and honest acknowledgment of it to the patient and use the experience to develop more personal understanding of the client difficulties


The Balance of Control and Power Between Health Professional and Client

 Who is the in charge the professional or the client??

 There is conflict about who choose the health concern for the health education the client him self or the educator

 In general it may be argued that trying to persuade the client about the better topics for education and direction of discussion and deciding about future behavior does not harm because most of people wont do what they don’t want to do

 May be not true trying to persuade children and people who are not assertive
 Each health educator need to decide to himself what is ethically acceptable in each situation

Individual Responsibilities versus Social Change

 Its known that the majority of traditional health education program aim to change people attitude toward healthier life style so it aim to change people attitude to fit the environment but do little to make the environment a healthier place to live in

 The traditional health education which focus to change the people attitude not the environment resulted in blaming the victim about his illness which is an ethical issue

 If the health educator choose to use a social change approach he faces further dilemma when educational pressure become political action in form of protest and lobbying


Justification for Intervention

 A common complaint from the public is that experts keep changing their mind and there are many examples which illustrate the truth of this such as constantly changing information about the relative risk of oral contraceptive

 At what point that the health educator decide that the evidence is sufficient enough to begin to educate the public with new information


 If the health educator has insufficient knowledge or experience how he will decide


Conflicting Interest

There are many situations where the health educator is likely to find himself in a conflict situation such as :

 When professional judgment conflict with popular public opinion e.g. when the dental profession advise fluoridation and the public presented petition opposing it

 When personal preference conflict with established policy of statutory services e.g. giving contraceptive advise to under 16 years old

 When the vocal pressure groups conflict with the established norms of the majority e.g. anti abortion pressure group campaigning to show their material in schools

 When the freedom of the individual conflict with that of the majority e.g. compulsory no smoking which restrict the freedom of the smoker

Making Ethical Decision

The following question may help the health educator to guide the ethical decision

Do you regard your client as equal? Do you take the notice of the client needs?

Do you think that the client has rights equal to your own?

Do you think that honestly you understand the feeling of your self and the client?

Do you know all the hard facts related to the decision you made?

Are you ready to translate your feeling and knowledge into action?

Are you able to state why you have taken decision and to give clear reason?