Quest for Skill-Based Health Education: The Historical Route

Abstract

The paper traced the historical route of the quest for skill-based health education from the Hippocratic era to the contemporary society. At the root of every era in the development of health education is the means of conveying health practice. The route commenced with the Hippocratic era of presenting health knowledge as prescriptive to the era of Hygeia to the Renaissance period and the consequent invention of the printing machine that disseminated health knowledge with oral intercourse coupled with Cultural Revolution by visual artists. Hygiene eventually became a school subject because of its emphasis on preventive measures to avoid health problems. Health education was born because of the irrelevance of hygiene in changing health behaviour and practice. Various methods of teaching health education came to be but it was found that teaching health knowledge and attitude was not enough until individuals acquire and develop health skill as a way of life hence the introduction of skill-based health education. With the development of the 21st century skills in many disciplines, health education has a task of delineating its skills in order to have a mapping of its conceptual framework. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n26p168