Scope of Health, Population and Environment Education

Scope of Health education

In general, scope of health education can be understood as the areas included in health education. Health education not only communicates knowledge about body features and diseases, but also includes the matters concerned with healthy surroundings, human psychological states affecting health, public health, human anthropology, medical science, and so many other things. We can list the scopes of health education as follows:

a) Home 

Home is the residence of all people. Home is the first school for all. A child passes the primary days of life at home. Every individual learns the basic skills of survival at  home. Proper time to wake up in the morning , to start daily sanitary schedules, to eat, to practice all other human  behavior are learnt at home. The child lives in community and learns many more about healthy social adjustment in the social environment. Health education aims to raise the level of knowledge, attitude, and behavior related to health and healthy life.

b) School

Children go to school for formal education and spend most of active hours of a day. They achieve several forms of health knowledge and develop healthy attitude and practise accordingly. Their health status depend upon environment of school, health curriculum, helpful school environment, co-curricular and extra-curricular health activites.

c) Community

Community is a place where many people live with their families. People's health is determined by the several factors in the community. Health education teaches about these factors like community sanitation, drainage, health service providing organizations , and health centers.

d) Health psychology

Health education includes the information related to  health psychology. Health psychology is the mental states, which influences the production of thought guiding health behaviors.

e) Medical science

Medical science is also a branch of health  education. This branch of science deals with medications, their working mechanisms in our body, and exploration of medications.

f) Population education

Human health is directly related to population. Both are interdependent to each other. Health education accommodates the basic aspects of population education. Demography, population characteristics , and reproductive behaviors are some of the contents of population education studied in health education.

g) Environmental education

Healthy life is possible in healthy environment. Environment factors its status, and modes of influences of environmental factors over health are studied in health education .

h) Physical education

Physical education teaches about physical exercises, its appropriate methods, and their influences in human body. Physical exercise must be done scientific ways. Physical education is a branch of health education that aims to promote status of health with bodily fitness acquired through exercise of body.

Scope of Population Education

Population education was regarded just as the process of giving knowledge about population status in the past. But nowadays, its areas have become broader and it includes many other fields of population studies. 

It teaches about management of population as well as population control.  On the other hand, it assists to produce children for sterile couples. Scopes of population education are described below:

a) Demography and  demographic characteristics

Demography and demographic characteristics are main scopes of population education . Demography includes the knowledge of population situation, forecast, present trends and similar factors. Population composition and distribution, growth rates, migration rates, and behavior of people influencing those factors are also studied in population education.

b) Determinants of population change

Population change occurs due to change in three demographic factors. They are birth, death, and migration. Population education studies about the trends of changes in these factors.

c) Consequences of rapid population growth

Population growth has been a big problem all over the world . There are many consequences of rapid population growth (RPG) . Some of them are environment pollution, exploitation of natural resources , loss of biodiversity, increase in social evils and crimes, etc. Population education includes these factors and gives knowledge about them.

d) Human sexuality

Population is increased due to birth. Birth is a result of human sexuality. Therefore, this stream has been a scope of population education . It teaches students about the sex behavior of human being , adolescence , reproductive phenomenon, and measures to manage population at home, community, and nation.  It teaches about sex psychology and behavior of people along with population plan for family, community, and nation.

e) Planning for the future

Population education deals with family size, family income , family expenditures, marriages at appropriate age , first child at appropriate age, birth spacing, use of contraceptives, savings, and such other matters related with the planning for the future.

Scope of Environment Education 

Environment education includes the study of various factors of the environment which affect the health of human beings. Environment comprises all the factors in our surroundings. It includes even abstract factors, which do not have weight, length, and breadth. Cultural traits, social norms and values, feasts and festivals etc. are some of the examples of abstract factors. Some of the scopes of environment education are described below: 

a) Physical aspect: (soil, water, air, rocks, gases, etc.) 

The physical aspect includes non-living things on the earth. They are soil, water, air, rock, gases etc. Environment education gives knowledge about the status of soil, water, air, rocks, gases and other various physical components of the earth. It aims to make students aware of the effects and consequences of activities upon these factors.  It also gives knowledge to raise environment friendly attitude and behavior among the students. 

b) Biological aspect (biology, agriculture, forestry etc.) 

The biotic factors include living plants and animals, their life mechanism, interrelationships etc. Some of the educational streams related to the biotic aspects are biology, agriculture and forestry. They are some of the important scopes of the environment education. This branch of education helps to develop the level of knowledge, attitude, and behavior regarding these factors in the students. 

c) Socio-cultural aspect (sociology, civics, religion, ethnicity, anthropology, etc. ) 

Environment has some of abstract aspects too. Abstract aspects include religious, cultural, ethnic, and social norms and values. Some of the educational streams dealing with this aspect are sociology, civics, and anthropology. Environment education also teaches students about such abstract factors, which play the vital roles in the environment.