Training and Utilization of Health Education Specialist

보건교육 전문인력의 양성 및 활용방안

The National Health Promotion Act passed in 1995 was a milestone for initiating a national and local health promotion program in Korea. And since then local governments and health centers have been developing and providing health promotion programs for the community population. To apply the effectiveness of community health promotion program, it is important to understand the key issue related to health education and the role of health education personnel. The purpose of this study was to define the responsibility and competency of health education specialist, and to develop the activity areas of health promotion program in Korea. Those who provide the service for health promotion and health education should be properly qualified and professionally trained. However, the skills and responsibilities of those who are in charge of providing health education program have not yet been clearly defined in Korea because the areas of health promotion and health education are composed of multi-academic fields. In case of United States, health education specialist is being developed through professional preparation in colleges and graduate schools, and certified through the examination. Also health education specialist is in charge of the planing, implementing and evaluation of health education program in school, hospital, health center, workplace and health food company. Therefore it is important to develop the programs to train and certify health education specialist. Also to extend the activity areas, the government should support continuously program development for health promotion and health education personnel.