Exploring pre-operational and concrete operational children’s thinking on nutrition: A case study

The health education profession has developed over recent years garnering national and international attention. Canada's evolving health education perspective emphasizing the concept of health literacy within the broader public health system reflects the need for trained, competent and skilled health educators designing, implementing and evaluating health-related programs. Higher education can play an important role in moving forward the health education process bridging research and practice. Capacity building in the health education and promotion workforce requires engagement from university systems, their collaborators, and participating students interested in improving the health of individuals, communities, and nations. This article provides: (1) illustration for the need for health education in higher education to move the practice of public health forward in Canada, (2) rationale for embedding greater emphasis on the health education perspective and process within Canadian academe, and (3) responses for future directions throughout health education practice for health educators entering the public health workforce in Canada and beyond.

The study examines children's stage of cognitive development in relation to their patterns of health decision-making, including their cognitive capabilities in integrating the sequential stages of the decision-making process. A sample of 81 male (N=33) and female (N=48) students were drawn from two urban public schools in West Tennessee. All participants in the study were of African-American descent. The Centers for Disease Control Decision-Making Instrument was used to assess students' decision-making as well as their understanding of the decision-making process. The children's cognitive level was determined by their performance on three Piagetian conservation tasks. Findings revealed that both the preoperational and concrete operational children performed significantly below the formal operational children in terms of total correct responses to the decision-making scenarios. Error type analyses indicated that the preoperational children made more errors involving "skipped step" than did either the concrete or formal operational children. There were no significant differences between children's level of cognitive development and any other error type. Implications for health promotion and disease prevention programs among prevention practitioners who work regularly with children are discussed.

Subjects of two cognitive levels (60 subjects at concrete operational and 60 at formal operational levels) were given Piaget's three-mountains task under three conditions. The first group was encouraged to use images, the second group spatial locations, the third was a control group. As hypothesized, spatial decentering is a task which can be solved by different cognitive strategies. The choice of a strategy depends upon the subject's cognitive level, e.g., use of image strategy increases performance of subjects at the concrete operational stage and decreases performance of subjects at the formal operational stage.

Chapter 7 - Religion and Guilt in Childhood

Objective: To find out how the World Health Organization Clinical Stages of HIV infection and use of antiretroviral therapy influence cognitive functioning of school-aged HIV-infected Nigerian children. Method: Cognitive assessments of 69 HIV positive children aged 6–15 years were performed using Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices. Thirty children were on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy. The children were subdivided for the purpose of analysis into two cognitive developmental stages using Piaget’s developmental stage: the concrete operation stage (6–11 years) and the formal operation stage (12–15 years). Children on antiretroviral therapies were also compared with those not on therapies. HIV infection was staged using the revised World Health Organization Clinical Staging for Paediatric HIV/AIDS. Result: The overall mean cognitive score for HIV positive subjects on antiretroviral therapy was 20.9 which was significantly higher than the overall score for subjects not on therapies of 14.6 (p=0.007). In the age group 6–11 years, the mean cognitive scores became lower significantly with worsening clinical stage for subjects irrespective of use of anti-retroviral therapy. The mean scores for subjects on therapy were significantly higher than that of their counterparts not yet on therapy at the same clinical stage. There were no significant differences in the cognitive scores at different clinical stages among the children in the age group 12–15 years. Conclusion: Cognitive scores were lower with worsening clinical staging in the younger school-aged HIV-infected Nigerian children. Subjects on Highly Active Anti-retroviral Therapy had better cognitive scores than subjects not on therapy at the same clinical stage. Routine neuropsychological evaluation for school-aged HIV-infected children are recommended with an emphasiss on the younger children.

Although nutrition-related health education policies exist at national, state and local levels, the degree to which those policies affect the everyday practices of health education teachers who are charged with executing them in schools is often unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the nutrition-related health education policy matrix that affected one urban school district, the health education teachers' awareness of those policies, the impact of nutrition policies on teachers' instruction and challenges teachers perceived in executing comprehensive nutrition education. The study used interpretive ethnography to examine the educational contexts and perspectives of 27 health educators from 24 middle schools in one urban district in the Midwestern United States. Data were collected through school observations, interviews with key personnel and document collection. We found that a network of nutrition-related education policies governed health education teachers' instruction, but that teachers were uniformly unaware of those policies. Without institutional coherence and clear directives, health education teachers taught little nutrition content, primarily due to poor training, professional development, instructional resources and administrative accountability. The results are discussed in light of the enormous challenges in many urban schools and the need for nutrition education professional development.

Introduction: Health education program to recognize and prevent degenerating disease is important for elderly. therefore, a national pension bank in Indonesia set initiative to provide health empowerment program in their waiting room, to optimize momentum when elderly community come and gather regularly in pension bank at every first week of the month. The bank organized health education and medical consultation program in the waiting room, cooperated with trained health educator and physician. This study investigated how elderly satisfy with the programs, and its effect to program and institution image. Method: We investigated 438 elderlies in 10 cities of 14 pension bank branches in Indonesia who participated in health education and consultation program. We assessed their satisfaction level related to health education and its cause using SERVQUAL approaches that consist of tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. We also investigated how it would trigger individual willingness to spread word of mouth in promoting the health education program and the institution to other elderly, using standardized equation modeling (SEM) analysis. Result: Most of elderly satisfy and understood the both health education content (90%) and considered this program as meaningful program (84%). In health education, the highest factor contributes to elderly satisfaction were tangibles (educator and doctor performance) and reliability factors (regular schedule and delivery method of health education content). Meanwhile in medical consultation, doctor’s performance (tangible factor), responsiveness and empathy to elderly health problem contributed equally important to elderly satisfaction. Medical consultation contributed more in triggering word of mouth to promote the program and institution (SEM r=0.81) rather than of health education (SEM r=0.58)Conclusion: Not only doctor’s performance and health content delivery method, but responsiveness and empathy were important key factors to provide successful health education and services for elderly. Elderlies highly appreciated pension bank’s initiative in providing health education and consultation while optimizing time in waiting room, therefore this model can be applied in further health education program.

The focus of this study was to examine the differences in health educators’ attitudes regarding the effectiveness of the current health education curriculum at predominately White institutions and minority-serving institutions. More specifically, the researchers were concerned with the influence of the variables age, ethnicity, gender, years of teaching experience, and institution type on the attitudes of health educators regarding the health curriculum at colleges, universities, and junior/community colleges in the southern region of Texas. The researchers formulated and tested 11 null hypotheses in this study. Each served to determine whether there was significant statistical difference in health educators’ attitudes. Part I of the Fisher Health Education Curriculum Attitude Survey, developed by the lead researcher, represents demographic information data that were used to obtain background information about the respondents (see Appendix 1). Part II of the Fisher Health Education Survey was used to determine health educators’ attitudes regarding the health education curriculum as it relates to students’ social and emotional needs (see Appendix 2). The researchers established content validity for the instrument as well as reliability. A population sample of 214 health educators who were randomly selected from 2-year and 4-year institutions were invited to participate in the survey. A total of 168 participants returned the surveys, which yielded a completion rate of 79 %.

BackgroundIn the last decade, the use of technology-based sexual health education has increased. Multiple studies have shown the feasibility of technology-based interventions, while a subset has also shown efficacy in improving youths’ sexual health outcomes such as increased condom use and knowledge. However, little is known about health educators’ experiences in integrating technology to augment sexual health curricula.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions and experiences of health educators regarding the incorporation of technology into a sexual health education program designed for underserved youth in Fresno County, California, and to identify facilitators and challenges to incorporating technology into the in-person curriculum.MethodsThis implementation study used data collected as part of a cluster randomized controlled trial to evaluate In the Know (ITK), an in-person sexual health education curriculum that includes technology-based content, such as a resource locator, videos, and games, which can be accessed through a mobile app or website. Data from implementation logs from each cohort (n=51) and annual interviews (n=8) with health educators were analyzed to assess the health educators’ experiences using the technology and adaptations made during the implementation.ResultsThe health educators reported that technological issues affected implementation to some degree: 87% of the time in the first year, which decreased to 47% in the third year as health educators’ familiarity with the app increased and functionality improved. Technology issues were also more common in non–school settings. Successes and challenges in 3 domains emerged: managing technology, usability of the ITK app, and youth engagement. The health educators generally had positive comments about the app and youth engagement with the technology-based content and activities; however, they also noted certain barriers to adolescents’ use of the mobile app including limited data storage and battery life on mobile phones.ConclusionsHealth educators require training and support to optimize technology as a resource for engaging with youth and providing sensitive information. Although technology is often presented as a solution to reach underserved populations, educational programs should consider the technological needs and limitations of the participants, educators, and settings.International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)RR2-10.2196/18060

This book pulls together information on women's health from a health education perspective. Its goal is to fill the many gaps that health care providers face when helping women learn self care and prevention skills. Special attention is paid to minority, low literacy, and elderly women, who may have fewer opportunities to find health information independently. Each chapter outlines a particular clinical condition, its prevalence among women; how clinical symptoms are manifested in women; where information may be missing, biased or misleading; and effective instructional approaches for women, including patient handouts, questionnaires, and other tools for clinical use. Nurses, health educators, physicians, and those interested in women's health will find this an eye-opening and important resource.

BackgroundIn this study, we sought to evaluate the influence of sociodemographic factors, ie, age, sex, socioeconomic status, maternal education, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status, on cognitive performance in school-aged HIV-infected Nigerian children.MethodsSixty-nine HIV-positive children aged 6–15 years were matched with 69 HIV-negative control children for age and sex. The children were subdivided for the purpose of analysis into two cognitive developmental stages using Piaget’s staging, ie, the concrete operational stage (6–11 years) and the formal operational stage (12–15 years). All participants underwent cognitive assessment using Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (RPM). Sociodemographic data for the study participants, ie, age, sex, socioeconomic status, and level of maternal education, were obtained using a study proforma. Logistic regression analyses were used to determine associations of HIV status and sociodemographic characteristics with RPM cognitive scores.ResultsThe overall mean RPM score for the HIV-positive children was 18.2 ± 9.8 (range 8.0–47.0) which was significantly lower than the score of 27.2 ± 13.8 (range 8.0–52.0) for the HIV-negative children (P < 0.001). On RPM grading, 56.5% of the HIV-positive children had cognitive performance at below average to intellectually defective range. Below average RPM scores were found to be significantly associated with younger age (6–11 years), positive HIV status, lower socioeconomic status, and low level of maternal education.ConclusionYounger age, poor socioeconomic status, and low level of maternal education were factors apart from HIV infection that were significantly associated with low cognitive function in school-aged HIV-infected Nigerian children.

The problem background of this article discusses progress in human life and other organisms, from the beginning of life to changes in the life cycle. The term cognition Refers to mental processes in the human mind, important for understanding the world and interactions with the environment. Jean Piaget highlighted how children build understanding through stages of cognitive development. The Independent Curriculum and Christian religious education provide a relevant context for discussing education and holistic individual development. The method used in this article is library research, namely collecting data from various literature related to research. The stages of literature study include preparing equipment, making a bibliography, managing time, and reading and recording research materials. Data was collected through searching for sources from various media such as books, journals and previous research, with critical and in-depth explanations to support arguments and ideas. The result of this article is that cognitive development is influenced by different stages. Children think differently at each stage, for example from sensorimotor to formal operational. The Freedom to Learn curriculum can integrate Piaget's theory in Christian religious education with a focus on direct experience, critical questions, constructive activities, and stages of cognitive development. This helps students understand and process information better.

This study intends to provide a description related to the correlation of Jean Piaget's cognitive development theory to Jerome S. Bruner's learning theory in learning related to the process of rainbow occurrence. The correlated relationships include the pre operational stage of Piaget's theory to the iconic stage of Bruner's theory, and the relationship of Piaget's concrete operational stage to the symbolic stage of Bruner's theory. The quantitative research design used was the pre-experimental design, with the form of the pre-experimental design used being the one-shot case study design. This method is intended to find the relationship of certain variables to other variables. The sampling technique used for this research design is purposive sampling. The samples taken were students aged 3-7 years and students aged 8-11 years. The purpose of determining age criteria is to adapt to Jean Piaget's cognitive development theory (for the pre-operational stage and the concrete operational stage) and Jerome S. Bruner's learning theory (for the iconic stage and the symbolic stage). Data collection techniques using test techniques and data analysis used using the Kendall level correlation method Based on the results of the Kendall level correlation test it is concluded that: first there is a correlation between Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development (pre operational stage) and Jerome S. Bruner's learning theory (iconic stage) in learning related to the process of the occurrence of a rainbow with the degree of closeness of the relationship that occurs between the two is 0.733 or 73.30%; secondly, there is a correlation between Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development (concrete operational stage) and Jerome S. Bruner's learning theory (symbolic stage) in learning related to the process of the occurrence of rainbows with the degree of closeness of the relationship that occurs between the two of them is 0.867 or 86.70%.

Knowing your audience: A narrative review of culturally tailored health programs for youth.

Background: Interest in and use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the United States is increasing. However, CAM remains an area of nascency for researchers and western practitioners. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine U.S. health educators' attitudes toward CAM and their use of common CAM therapies. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among members of a professional health educator listserv. Results: Health educators generally have positive attitudes toward CAM and about 90% have used at least one CAM therapy in the last 12 months. Differences in CAM attitudes and use were significant, with females reporting more positive attitudes toward and use of CAM. Discussion: Health educators' overall positive attitudes toward CAM are consistent with the limited extant literature. However, important differences were found by various demographic characteristics, not previously identified. Translation to Health Education Practice: The results of this study support the small, but growing, body of literature regarding the need for CAM education for future health education professionals. A discussion of various approaches to the integration of CAM education into professional preparation programs is included.