Abstract:

Health education is considered a discipline in the field of the health sciences, and it is characterized by a set of learning activities that consider three fundamental aspects: i. Information, ii. Development of positive attitudes, iii. Promotion of healthy habits and patterns [1].Over time, Health education has had different definitions associated with medical orientation and with the approaches taken by the societies to tackle health problems.

Some experts define Health education as “Any combination of educational experiences designed to predispose, train and strengthen voluntary adoptions of individual and collective behavior leading to health” [2]. In the area of pedagogy, Health education involves the existence of teaching and learning process through different resources that allow informing, motivating and helping population to adopt and maintain practices and healthy lifestyles [1].The traditional methods used for Health education focus on the transmission of health information through conferences, brochure and videos. They are good a resource for learning, but they will not provide a good result, because the people usually do not used the information received. This is the reason for Health education has adopted a holistic overview that analyzes the behavioral and social factors to maintain and promote health standards[1].

In the case of the hard-to-reach populations,some methods have been used based on technology for promoting the participation of people in the process of health education and a healthy lifestyle. As it is the case of the tele-education on health, a distance training mode through which to make by mobile technologies [3] while these health resources have been widely accepted, they have still limitations because only cover the knowledge area which is very useful and good, but it is not all. The method should include emotional and skills area in order to generate capacities for people to make informed decisions about their health [4].

Based on the problems identified previously and the TIGUM group experience in development project of telemedicine [5], a mobile platform technology was created which not only gives quality and useful information on the healthy lifestyles and practices, but also it promotes developing in skills and health behaviors for the users through a detailed analysis about factors that influence personal lifestyle such as: physical activity levels, monitoring of calories and analyze of physiological signals. The results obtained with the mobile platform technology are then analyzed by a qualified health professional in order to enhance knowledge and understanding on health and to raise the level of awareness about the importance of good health.

References:
[1] Universidad de Cantabria, La Educación para la Salud (2010);Available: http://ocw.unican.es
[2] Green, L. (1992).Prevención y educación sanitaria. Salud Pública. Interamericano.Madrid.
[3] L. J. R. Lopez, D. G. Goroso (2012) A Customizable Mobile Tool to Promote Health and Prevent Non-Communicable Diseases, Global Telemedicine And Ehealth Updates:Knowledge Resources,52,56
[4] Consulting, V. W. (2009).mHealth for development: the opportunity of mobile technology for healthcare in the developing world. Washington, 14,77-82.
[5] Basile,F.R.M.,Amate, F. C. &López,L.R.(2016).Desenvolvimento Colaborativo em Telemedicina e Telessaúde para Educação, Assistência e Pesquisa:Estudo de Caso,Revista Academia y Virtualidad,9(1),3.

Keywords:

Health education, Mobile technologies, Mobile platform technology.