Online Health Education Degree Program

Online Health Education Degree Programs - What Do You Study?

Health education is the development of individual, group, institutional, community and systemic strategies to improve health knowledge, attitudes, skills and behavior. It is a social science that draws from the biological, environmental, psychological, physical and medical sciences to promote health and prevent disease. Students can expect to study different methods of health education from the past, as well as learn the newest and most effective methods for communicating health information to students and communities.

Related Health Education Degree Programs Online

Schools that offer degrees in Health Education train students to promote wellness by instructing others in the way of proper diet, exercise, disease prevention methods and behavior. In addition to learning pedagogical techniques and modern teaching trends, health education students may also pursue coursework involving topics such as nutrition, exercise, addiction, obstetrics, disease, pharmacology, psychology and public health. Degrees are offered at the Associate, Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral levels, with more advanced degrees often focusing strongly on one specific healthcare topic. All degree programs try to teach their students a broad range of background health information as well as communication skills so that they can help them become the best future health educators.

Career Options in Health Education

While all Health Educators are teachers by nature, there are a variety of career options and places at which they can work. As reserach continues into all areas of health and healthcare, we are learning more and more information that can be useful to our health and to that of future generations. Therefore, health educators are in high demand in order to disseminate this information to the public and teach them how to put it into practice. Health educators with lower level degrees can pursue careers in primary and secondary school health education, as well as pursue entry-level health education opportunities with corporations, local health institutions or the government. Those with higher level degrees can become professors or assistant professors at universities offering health education programs or pursue a career as a Director of Health and Wellness program (for a corporation), a Director of Community Health Services or a Clinical Studies Coordinator. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects employment of health educators to grow faster than the average for all occupations through 2014. This growth will be fueled by the rising costs of healthcare, increased awareness of preventable diseases, the need for early detection of diseases and an increasing recognition of the need for qualified health educators.