Barriers to Effective Health Education

Barriers to effective health education dwell within our system that prevents the less privileged population from acquiring the necessary information on health-related issues or focuses on the provision of substandard education to them when compared to the more privileged population.

These barriers can be linguistic in nature. Health education is effective only when it is understood by the individuals being taught. When health education is being taught, it must be made sure that such words and terms are used that are understandable to the entire population. Apart from linguistic barriers, there may be obstacles faced in the form of no access to such education programs. This may be due to the constraint of time or money alike.

To overcome time constraint, this health education program should be incorporated in the schedule of individuals by coming up with some sort of practice that can be easily adopted. To address the money issue, this education program at best needs to be free, so that all can have access to such programs. Apart from that, there can be social or religious barriers. In some societies, people consider it taboo to acquire education on some public issues. In this regard, media assistance can be acquired in promoting awareness by running campaigns that call for the consideration of the issues at hand and identifying their importance to society. Moreover, there can be geographical barriers, which can make these inaccessible to those individuals living in far-flung or remote areas of the city.

All these barriers can be eliminated, or at least alleviated, by coming up with strategies and policies specifically designed to address these issues. The implementation of these strategies, no doubt, will take some time to show effect, but the advantages it will bring will be worth the exercise.