Thoughts on Health Education

I've been browsing through articles and research papers in my search for a project topic. I'm starting to gravitate towards studies about psychological health, especially in children. When it comes to education, "underprivileged" refers to more than just socioeconomic disadvantage; learning disabilities, preexisting health conditions, psychological distress, and a host of other factors can impact a student's ability to learn. All else being equal, a student who struggles with a psychological disorder will have a more difficult time in the classroom than his healthy classmate. I'm curious whether web technology can be used to alleviate some of these differences, making education more accessible to the marginalized and underprivileged.

I was intrigued to see the article about web-based avian flu education. As it turns out, applying web technology to health initiatives (especially for children) is more complicated than I realized. How do you set up a post-test that accurately measures understanding? How do you measure attitude change? What about behavior change? If a study changes someone's knowledge and attitude, but doesn't change their behavior, was it successful? It was discouraging to see that no behavior changes were noticed after the avian flu study, but I wonder if we can still take advantage of the web's unique capabilities to make strides in children's health.

One of the valuable aspects of web technology is the sense of control people derive from using web applications. People use the web to organize their mail, communicate with friends, manage their tasks, and keep their lives in order. Web technology can instill a sense of self-agency, and if this feeling could be harnessed, it could have a noticeable impact on health. I've started some cursory readings about depression and stress, both obstacles that can take a toll on education, and it seems that self-efficacy has a profound effect on the degree to which people experience stress. In fact, a feeling of control can have a positive effect on a variety of chronic illnesses. So it seems that an important aspect in health is the ability to control what happens to your body, or at least to perceive that they can.

So web technology has perhaps a unique ability to shape health education. Adjusting a sense of control, and consequently adjusting stress and attitudes, can be particularly relevant with psychological conditions that impact learning, like ADHD, depression, mental illness, and certain learning disabilities. My next step is to keep investigating: one of my favorite parts about reading relevant research papers is that they almost always offer a whole new set of sources to check out. In the References section of the avian flu paper, I circled 19 sources to check out, some about health, some about web tech, some about the role of humor in education.

Which reminds me: I'm intrigued by the science of laughter and humor, and its possible role in health and learning. I think laughter is perhaps underutilized in education, and since I've always had an interest in cartoons and humor, it seems like an avenue I could explore further. So as these disparate factors are coming into focus -- child psychology, web technology, humor, and visual learning from last week -- I'm hoping a fruitful project will begin to come together.