Educational Objectives

Students who complete the program will:

I. Develop the skills to:

• Locate, comprehend, and use 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
• Observe oneself: assess and change one’s responses to external and internal stimuli to have the greatest potential to educate and inspire the community served
• Exhibit a willingness to be a learner: ask for help when needed, listen receptively, be open to receiving coaching, and reflect on one’s ability to engender these practices in the community served
• Assess population needs, assets, and capacity for health education
• Achieve and maintain rapport with community, 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
• Bring awareness to the role of the health educator’s personal narrative when serving the community; bring awareness to the community served of the role of the connections between language and habitual patterns of behavior
• Embody the gifts and strengths of the seasons and integrate the lessons of nature into one’s teachings
• 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

II. 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

III. 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 & wellness needs of U.S. populations

Program Outcomes

Students who complete the program will:

I. Have the skills to effectively educate communities to initiate and maintain behavioral changes that support health and wellness

• Be able to articulate integrative health modalities and wellness practices from a scientific perspective
• Engage in personal transformation by embodying the practices learned in the program and by interacting with cohort community of committed teachers and learners
• Have a basic knowledge of the timeless teachings of global wisdom traditions and the rhythms of nature that may serve to ground powerful transformative language practices
• Be able to assess population needs relevant to health education program design
• Be able to design and plan health education programs
• Be able to implement health education programs
• Be able to evaluate educational programs and participate in research related to health education
• Have the skills to administer and manage health education programs

II. Have an evidence-based understanding of health and wellness that integrates traditional, complementary, and conventional medicine, as well as self-care practices

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

III. Have the skills to succeed professionally as a health education specialist and to contribute to the overall field of health education

• Be qualified and prepared to sit for the Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) exam
• Be able to 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
• Have the skills to be 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 education