Concepts and trends in the preparation of health educators in the US

Traditionally, health educators in the United States were categorized as either school or community-based and were prepared separately in two kinds of institutions: schools of education and schools of public health. The standards for the two kinds of health education preparation were established by two separate agencies: State Education Departments and the American Public Health Association. In the past decade, schools of education have begun to offer training for community health educators as well as for teachers of health. Where this has occurred, programmes have many similarities, but the field work differs. Also a new type of health education specialist has emerged: one who works with patients. The field work for this category of health educator is usually in a health care institution. This situation has made it important to develop standards for professional preparation and practice that can be applied to all types of health educators. A group of professionals have reached agreement that a common core curriculum should be established for the entry level, and guidelines developed for specialized preparation at the advanced levels. A national study is underway to delineate roles of health educators. The future will probably bring competency-based curricula with unified standards for the profession as a whole. There will be more institutions of higher education offering community health education programmes and they can be expected to develop concentrations on special topics such as occupational health or patient education according to their resources. A viable accrediting system can be expected to be developed and widely used. However, the number of students will remain stable until the job market for health educators expands.