Accessing Valid and Reliable Health Information, Products, and Services (Accessing Health Resources)

“…the ability to locate and use…valid and reliable health information, products, and services to enhance health” (Tappe et al., 2009, p. 249)

Analyzing Influences

“…the ability to examine diverse internal and external factors and their [positive and negative] effect on personal health practices and behaviors” (adapted from Tappe et al., 2009, pp. 248-249, National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

• Internal Factors: Internal factors include perceptions of social norms, personal attitudes, values and beliefs, self-efficacy, and health-related behaviors (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).
• External Factors: >External factors include family, peers, school, community, culture, media, social media, technology, and policies along with governmental regulations and their enforcement (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022)

Attitudes

“…a person’s evaluation of how favorable or unfavorable…performing a particular behavior would be” (Yzer, 2012, p. 24)

Beliefs

“Statements or propositions about health, health behaviors or practices, or oneself that are accepted as being true” (Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, 2013, p. 24).

Body Language

“…patterns of breathing, eye movements, facial expression, gestures, mannerisms, body positions and movements, nonverbal behaviors, emotions, and proxemics that can be expressed and interpreted…for health communication (Ubbes & Njoku, 2022, p. 27).

Characteristics of Effective Health Education Curricula

“A summary of curriculum attributes that research findings indicate promote health-enhancing behaviors or reduce health risk-taking behaviors” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-1).

Comprehensive Health Education Curriculum

“A set of instructional strategies and learning experiences, for students in pre-Kindergarten through grade 12, that provides multiple opportunities to acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills required to make health-promoting decisions, achieve health literacy, adopt health-enhancing behaviors, and promote the health of others. A comprehensive health education curriculum is one that is broad in scope and content and addresses numerous health problems, issues, or topics” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-1).

Consent

To agree or to give another person permission to do something (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Consequences

“The results or outcomes of an action or event” (Telljohann et al., 2020, p. 203).

Cultural Competence

“The ability of an individual to understand and respect values, attitudes, beliefs, and morals that differ across cultures” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-1).

Culture

“…refers to integrated patterns of human behavior that include the language, thoughts, communication, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021a, para. 3).

Curriculum

“…an educational plan incorporating a structured, developmentally appropriate series of intended student learning outcomes and associated learning experiences; generally organized as a detailed set of text, graphics/images, instructional strategies, and materials” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-1).

Decision Making

The ability to select between two or more alternatives to reach the best outcome in specified time frame. Decision making requires the use of accurate and reliable information while progressing through a set of steps intended to take deliberate actions to enhance health.

• Decision Making Steps: These steps include:
  
  • identify when a decision is needed;
  • identify what information is needed to inform a decision to improve health;
  • determine if help is needed to make the decision;
  • generate options and predict their outcomes;
  • choose a decision that aligns with personal values and beliefs;
  • act on the decision; and
  • reflect on the healthy and unhealthy consequences of the decision.
• Note: Decision making is nonlinear and complex, and students may apply the steps out of order, or even repeat steps many times, based on the context and health situation they encounter (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Developmentally Appropriate

“Curriculum materials that are consistent with an individual’s cognitive, mental, emotional, physical, moral, and social development” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-1).

Disease Prevention

“The processes of avoiding, preventing, reducing, or alleviating distress and promote, preserve, and restore health” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-1).

Diversity

“The differences among individuals and groups of people based on factors such as race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity and expression, age, socioeconomic status, class, language, culture, religion, sexual orientation, ability, and geographic area” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-1).

Equity (see also Health Equity)

“Fairness, evenhandedness, impartiality…” (Last, 2007, p. 111).

Functional Health Knowledge

Is valid and reliable information and concepts that support health beliefs, skills, and behaviors. Examples of functional health knowledge: benefits of healthy eating and characteristics of emotionally healthy people. In contrast, health information that has little influence on health beliefs, health skills, and behaviors is non-functional. Examples of nonfunctional information includes memorizing the bones in the body and drug classifications (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Functional Health Literacy (see Health Literacy)

Gesture

Gesture refers to expressive motions of the body, limbs, and hands to emphasize speech or convey information in a visual-spatial way (adapted from Clough & Duff, 2020, adapted by National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Goal Setting

The process of determining a desired health-related behavior or practice to achieve over a specific time period. This process is more deliberate than desires and momentary intentions and involves committed thoughts, emotions, and behaviors toward attain the goal.

• Goal Setting Skills: Goal-setting skills involve the assessment of personal health practices and the development of an action plan designed to motivate and guide a person toward reaching a goal. Successful goal setting consists of procedural steps which include creation of a goal statement that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time bound (SMART). Students gain confidence in their abilities to set and achieve health goals and have a higher probability of success by:
  
  • assessing their personal health practices,
  • creating a SMART goal,
  • identifying the benefits and barriers to reaching a goal,
  • implementing strategies to achieve a personal health goal (e.g., accessing information, resources, and supportive networks; tracking progress; setting reminders; and revising the goal based on life circumstances); and
  • persisting when facing barriers and challenges (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

• Goal Setting Subskills: (Note: The subskills are defined in a sequence aligned with the performance expectations for goal setting)
  
  • Self-Assessment: “…the ability to identify and evaluate one’s health-related practices and health status” (Tappe et al., 2009, p. 251).
  • Creating a SMART Goal: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time Bound (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. CHE-39).
  • Action Plan: “a set of things to do in order to achieve something, especially one that has been considered in detail in advance” (Oxford University Press, n.d.a). An action plan for a health goal may include the benefits and barriers to reaching the goal, strategies to make progress and overcome barriers to achieving the goal, and a plan to track progress toward the goal (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).
  • Identifying Benefits: Examining the positive outcomes of making progress toward and achieving a health-related goal (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).
  • Identifying Barriers: Examining things that hinder or block progress toward a health-related goal (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).
  • Implementing Strategies: Approaches used to make progress and overcome barriers to achieve a health-related goal. These approaches include tracking progress, setting reminders, taking small steps, and revising the goal based on life circumstances (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).
  • Self-Monitoring (Tracking Progress): “…the ability to observe and record over time one’s progress toward a health-related goal” (Tappe et al., 2009, p. 251).

Habit (see Health Habits)

Health

“A state of complete physical, social, and mental well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity; a functional state which allows a person to achieve goals and activities for a healthy life” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-2).

• Dimensions of Health: The dimensions or facets of health vary widely between the many definitions and models of health and wellness. The dimensions of health identified in the National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022 include physical, social, emotional, and intellectual.
  
  • Physical: “A healthy body” (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2016, p. 7).
  • Social: “…involves healthy relationships with friends, family, and the community, and having an interest in and concern for the needs of others and humankind” (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2016, p. 17).
  • Emotional: “…involves the ability to express feelings, adjust to emotional challenges, cope with life’s stressors, and enjoy life” (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2015, p. 21).
  • Intellectual: “…involves many things that keep our brains active and our intellect expanding” (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2016, p. 9).

Health Advocacy

The ability to take action to secure conditions that support the health and quality of life of self and others. Health advocacy involves influencing others to act in ways that support personal, family, peer, school, and community health (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

• Advocacy Skills: Skills used to identify needs, formulate a plan of action, create messages, and apply strategies to promote health. Students use advocacy skills to encourage others to adopt health-enhancing norms, beliefs, and behaviors as well to implement policies, programs, and environments that support health (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Health Behavior

“The actions people undertake that influence their health status. These actions are influenced by the combination of understanding, insight, beliefs (values), and practices that define the patterns of actions that influence people’s health status, and may promote, preserve, and protect good health, or if aspects of behavior are harmful, may lead to injury, death, or chronic disease” (Last, 2007, p. 155).

Health Disparities

“a particular type of health difference that is closely linked with social, economic, and/or environmental disadvantage. Health disparities adversely affect groups of people who have systematically experienced greater obstacles to health based on their racial or ethnic group; religion; socioeconomic status; age; mental health; cognitive, sensory, or physical disability; sexual orientation or gender identity; geographic location; or other characteristics historically linked to discrimination or exclusion” (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2022, para. 22).

Health Education

“A formal, structured combination of planned learning experiences that provide the opportunity to acquire information and skills needed to making health-promoting decisions, achieve health literacy, adopt health-enhancing behaviors, and promote the health of others” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-2).

Health Education Curriculum

“A set of instructional strategies and learning experiences that provide students with opportunities to acquire the attitudes, knowledge, and skills necessary for making health-promoting decisions, achieving health literacy, adopting health-enhancing behaviors, and promoting the health of self and others. A health education curriculum should have:

• A set of intended learning outcomes or learning objectives that are directly related to the students’ acquisition of health-related knowledge, attitudes, and skills.
• A planned progression of developmentally appropriate lessons or learning experiences that lead to achieving these objectives.
• Continuity between lessons or learning experiences that clearly reinforce the adoption and maintenance of specific health-enhancing behaviors.
• Accompanying content or materials that correspond with the sequence of learning events and help teachers and students meet the learning objectives.
• Assessment strategies to determine if students achieved the desired learning” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-2).

Health Equity

“…the absence of avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically” (National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016, p. xiii).

Health Habits

“A [health] behavior that has become a customary or regular part of life, often to the extent that it is done without conscious thought, or almost automatically, and recognized as a way to render life orderly” (adapted from Last, 2007, p. 149).

Health Instruction

The process, including the delivery of lessons, facilitation of learning, directing of activities, events, and other components of classroom experience, designed to help students acquire developmentally appropriate health knowledge and attitudes and improve health-enhancing skills and behaviors (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, GL-3).

Health Literacy

“The capacity of an individual to obtain, interpret, and understand basic health information and services and the competence to use such information and services to enhance health” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-3).

• Functional Health Literacy: “…the ability to read, write, and speak about health” (Ubbes & Ausherman, 2018, p. 31).
• Interactive Health Literacy: “…interpersonal communication between people, including their interactive use of print and electronic materials to enhance health (Ubbes & Ausherman, 2018, p. 31).
• Critical Health Literacy: “…addresses issues of access and equity for health information and services. This process includes critical problem posing with creative solutions to empower people who have a variety of backgrounds, health needs, and interests” (Ubbes & Ausherman, 2018, p. 31).

Health and Safety Practices

Health behaviors people perform on a regular basis and often do not require significant thought or decision making (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Health Promotion

“Any planned combination of educational, political, environmental, regulatory, and organizational mechanisms that support actions and conditions of living that are conducive to the health of individuals, families, groups, and communities” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-3).

Health-Related Skills

“Abilities to translate knowledge and readiness into the performance of actions that enable students to deal with social pressures, avoid or reduce risk-taking behaviors, enhance and maintain personal health, and promote the health of others” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-3).

• Health-related skills include:
  
  • analyzing influences,
  • accessing valid and reliable health information, products, and services,
  • interpersonal communication,
  • decision making,
  • goal setting; and
  • advocacy (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Healthy Behaviors (see Risk Behavior and Risk Reduction) Actions that support health (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

• Examples of healthy behaviors for children and adolescents include:
  
  • “use prescription and over-the-counter and prescription medications correctly…,
  • eat lots of fruits and vegetables…,
  • express feelings in a healthy way…,
  • practice appropriate hygiene habits…,
  • engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity for at least 60 minutes every day…,
  • follow appropriate safety rules when riding in or on a motor vehicle…,
  • establish and maintain healthy relationships…,
  • avoid using (or experimenting with) any form of tobacco,
  • manage interpersonal conflict in nonviolent ways” (adapted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, pp. CHE-2-CHE-3).

Interactive Health Literacy (see Health Literacy)

Interpersonal Communication

Encompasses both what is said and how it is said, along with the non-verbal messages sent through tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, and body language. Interpersonal communication includes a series sub-skills including effective verbal and nonverbal cues for speaking and listening; identifying and communicating needs, wants, and feelings; using refusal skills to set boundaries; using negotiation and collaboration skills for managing and resolving conflict (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

• Interpersonal Communication Skills (Note: The subskills are defined in a sequence aligned with the performance expectations for interpersonal communication).
  
  • Nonverbal Communication: “…the ability to use or interpret another person’s use of space, time, movement, touch, eye contact, tone of voice, posture, facial expressions, and gestures to communicate feelings or information and enhance or protect health…[includes] matching nonverbal behavior when conveying verbal messages” (adapted from Tappe et al., 2009, p. 249).
  • Listening: “…the ability to show respect for, and attend to, the thoughts and feelings communicated by others to enhance or protect health” (Tappe et al., 2009, p. 249).
  • Assertive Communication: “…the ability to confidently express in healthy ways what one needs, wants, and feels with regard to physical…, [intellectual], …emotional, and social health” (adapted from Tappe et al., 2009, p. 249).
  • Requesting Help: “The ability to ask for…assistance when one is threatened or harmed or when assistance is needed to enhance or protect health” (adapted from Tappe et al., 2009, p. 250).
  • Refusal Skills: “…the ability to use verbal and nonverbal communication skills to resist pressure and say no to avoid or reduce health risks” (adapted from Tappe et al., 2009, p. 250).
  • Respecting Consent or Non-Consent: The ability to show ways to acknowledge and abide by another person’s consent or non-consent to do something (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022). (see Consent)
  • Collaboration Skills: The ability to cooperate with others to do something to enhance physical, intellectual, emotional, and social health (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).
  • Negotiation Skills: “…the ability to discuss a mutual issue or concern with others and cooperatively agree on a compromise or settlement that enhances or protects physical…, [intellectual], …emotional, and social health” (adapted from Tappe et al., 2009, p. 250).
  • Conflict Resolution: “…the ability to work out disagreements and differences with others to prevent, manage, or resolve the discord and protect physical…, [intellectual], …emotional, and social health” (adapted from Tappe et al., 2009, p. 250).

Language

“…a symbolic system through which people communicate and through which culture is transmitted” (City University of New York Open Educational Resources, 2022, p. 3).

Media

“The printed press, newspapers and magazines, radio, television, …Internet sites [and apps (i.e., social media)] that purvey news, information, misinformation, and all shades of opinion” (adapted from “mass media”, Last, 2007, p. 225, National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

National Health Education Standards

“Written expectations for what students should know and be able to do by grades 2, 5, 8, and 12 to promote personal, family, [peer], and community health. The standards provide a framework for curriculum development and selection, instruction, and assessment of student knowledge and skills in health education” (adapted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-3, National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Norms (see Social Norms)

Observable Health and Safety Practices (see Health Practices)

A healthy or safety practice that can be seen and measured in a classroom or school setting. Examples include, but are not limited to, washing hands, flossing and brushing teeth, safely crossing streets, practicing stress management techniques, wearing a bike helmet correctly, measuring heart rate, and selecting a nutrient-dense snack (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Opportunity to Learn Standards

“Descriptors that identify policies, resources, and activities to enable schools, communities, institutions of higher education, and state and national health and education agencies to support the implementation of the National Health Education Standards” (adapted from Joint Committee on National Health Education Standards, 1995, p. 75).

Performance Expectations

The developmentally appropriate specific concepts and skills that students should know, believe, and be able to do to demonstrate achievement of the National Health Education Standards by the end of grades 2, 5, 8, and 12. Performance expectations help educators focus on essential health knowledge, beliefs, and skills that are basic to the development of students learning of each standard and serve as a blueprint for curriculum, instruction, and assessment in health education (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Product

“a thing that is grown, produced or created, usually for sale” (Oxford University Press, n.d.b). In health education, examples of products include foods, deodorant, sunscreen, prescription and over-the-counter drugs, bicycle helmets, and athletic shoes.

Protective Factors

“Assets (internal to individuals) and resources (external to individuals) that counteract, reduce, or eliminate the adverse effects of risk factors” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-4).

Reliable

Means consistent and trustworthy (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Resilience

“…the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress…” (American Psychological Association, 2020, para. 4).

Risk Avoidance

“Places an emphasis on eliminating or avoiding behaviors that lead to adverse health outcomes. Examples include: not smoking, not drinking alcohol or using other drugs; not engaging in sexual intercourse; and not engaging in violence” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-4).

Risk Behavior

“An activity that places a person at increased risk of suffering a particular condition, illness, or injury” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-4).

Risk Reduction

“Places emphasis on lessening or reducing the frequency of behaviors that lead to adverse health outcomes, or adopting additional behaviors that reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-4).

Self-Efficacy

“…beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (Bandura, 1997, p. 3). This includes “The belief in one’s capability to learn and/or perform specific tasks to achieve desired goals and that influence events that affect their life” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-4).

Services

“the particular skills or help that a person is able to offer” (Oxford University Press, n.d.c). Examples of school-based services include nursing, counseling, psychological, occupational therapy, and social and nutrition services. Examples of community-based services including doctors, dentists, pharmacists, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, law enforcement officers, public health workers (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Social Determinants of Health

“…the conditions in the environment where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, function, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.” The five domains of the social determinants of health include: “economic stability, education access and quality, health care access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social community content” (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, n.d., para. 1-2).

Social Justice

“The concept and implementation of equity” (Last, 2007, p. 348).

Social Media

“websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking” (Oxford University Press, n.d.d).

Social Norms

“Standards, models, beliefs, or patterns of behavior considered to be typical for a specific group. A social norm is an implied agreement or understanding among a groups’ membership about how members in a group behave or should behave” (adapted from “norms”, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-3, National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Symbols

Cultural representations that occur in verbal and nonverbal communication and written and unwritten communication. Symbols convey specific meanings through letters that make words, numerals that make numbers, and shapes that are culturally specific. Symbols can be words, gestures, signs, and signals to help people understand the world (adapted from City University of New York Open Educational Resource, 2022).

Trusted Adults

“…people in the lives of… [children] who care about them and help them to be healthy.“ Examples include parents, guardians, and other adult family members, friends, and people at school and in the community who care about them (adapted from Telljohann et al., 2017, p. 17, (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Valid

Health information that is accurate, credible, and not misleading (National Consensus for School Health Education, 2022).

Values

“Principles, standards, or qualities regarding as worthwhile or desirable” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021b, p. GL-5).

Well Being

“…includes the presence of positive emotions and moods (e.g., contentment, happiness), the absence of negative emotions (e.g., depression, anxiety), satisfaction with life, fulfillment, and positive functioning” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018, para. 6) and “…encompasses physical health, social health, intellectual health, spiritual health, and emotional health dimensions” (Wiley & Cory, 2013, p. 662).