Program Objectives

Students will develop the skills to:

• Locate, comprehend, and utilize primary and secondary literature relevant to the field of health education
• Generate balanced evidence-based summaries of the health and wellness impact of self-care behaviors, as well as traditional, complementary, and conventional medicine modalities
• Assess population needs, assets, and capacity for health education
• Achieve and maintain rapport, practice compassion and powerful listening, and work towards achieving a sense of oneness with the community served
• Create educational programs that address identified health and wellness needs of target populations
• Help individuals and the community understand the connections between language and habitual patterns of behavior
• Implement health and wellness educational programs using a variety of media modalities and technologies
• Evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of health and wellness education programs
• Administer and manage health education programs
• Prepare applications for health educational funding and publish results of health education efforts
• Complete a capstone project and generate a health education specialist portfolio
• Partner with the community served by modeling positive health behavior changes

Students will acquire a basic knowledge of:

• Integrative human physiology required to understand how traditional, complementary, and conventional medicine modalities and self-care practices support health and wellness
• Disease etiology and pathophysiology with an emphasis on preventable diseases
• Neurobiology relevant to the process of learning, behavior modification, and health interventions
• Cross-cultural, traditional, and modern concepts of health, wellness, illness, and disease
• The principles and practices of traditional, complementary, and conventional medicine

Students will acquire a comprehensive knowledge of:

• The roles health education specialists play in promoting community health
• Theories and models central to health education to be used for assessment, communication, program design, and evaluation
• Health policy and its relationship to community health and education
• The physiologic basis and the scientific evidence for the benefits of health-promoting environments and behaviors
• The pathophysiologic basis and the scientific evidence for the negative health consequences of environment and of harmful behaviors
• The evidence base for traditional, complementary, and conventional medicine modalities in addressing health and wellness needs of U.S. populations

Program Outcomes

Students who complete this program will have the skills to effectively educate communities to initiate and maintain behavioral changes that support health and wellness, including the ability to:

• Articulate integrative health modalities and wellness practices from a scientific perspective
• Assess population needs relevant to health education program design
• Design and plan health education programs
• Implement health education programs
• Evaluate educational programs and participate in research related to health education
• Administer and manage health education programs
• Lead by example by utilizing the practices learned in the program

Have the evidence-based understanding of health and wellness that integrates traditional, complementary, and conventional medicine, as well as self-care practices, including the ability to:

• Articulate foundational health sciences from an integrative perspective that is rooted in the inter-relationship between psychological, social, and biological processes
• Evaluate the evidence base for integrative health and wellness approaches
• Evaluate the role played by cultural, social, and ecological environments in community health and wellness
• Evaluate the relationships between environmental and genetic factors that support or hinder health and wellness

Have the skills to succeed professionally as a health education specialist and to contribute to the overall field of health education, including the ability to:

• Qualify and prepare to sit for the Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) exam
• Articulate the roles played in related careers including health education researcher, health education resource person, disseminator of health information, health education consultant, health communications expert, and health education advocate
• Become a life-long learner, apply critical thinking skills to the expanding evidence base, and continue to develop health and information literacy
• Have the health education specialist competencies and broader skills to function in a variety of career settings, to advance the field of health educatio