Genealogy of Health Education Profession

Genealogy of the Health Education Profession

Over the history of the health education profession, several universities have led the way in producing professional health educators.  Undoubtedly, there are differences of opinion about which were most impressive in their production and in the quality of the professionals graduating from each of them.  Likewise, there are differences of opinion about which have been best at sustaining prominence and which have surpassed some of the early leaders in seeding the profession with new practitioners and aspiring researchers.  Would it be possible to produce a graphic depiction of the genealogy of our profession that reflects the patterns of production of major professional preparation programs?

Possibly one approach would be to encourage each program listed in the American Association for Health Education Directory of Health Education Programs in Higher Education to develop an historical time line.  Ideally, this timeline would begin with the formal founding of the health education professional preparation program and trace its history to the present time.  It would reflect the faculty members who have mentored aspiring professional health educators and the noteworthy practitioners and researchers developed by the program.   The finished timeline could be used as desired by the program, but a copy could be sent to an agency or program willing to coordinate an effort to develop a comprehensive graphic depiction of the multiple time lines.

Within each program, a strategy could be selected and implemented to develop the time line for it.  Maybe a class could do it.  This approach was used at Texas Woman’s University to develop a historical time line of the health education profession that was displayed at a conference on graduate competencies that was held in the mid-1990s at the DFW Airport Hyatt Hotel.  An alternative approach would be for a master-level graduate student to produce the time line as a professional paper project.  This approach has been used to develop directories of graduates from selected programs.

The National Health Education Center would be a logical agency to coordinate development of a comprehensive graphic depiction of the genealogy of the health education profession.  If the Center leadership decides it is not able or willing to take on this project, maybe the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, one of the health education professional organizations, such as SOPHE of AAHE, a university-based professional preparation program or, possibly, HEDIR will be willing to do this.

Posted by William B. Cissell on December 5, 2008

Tags: Genealogy Health Education
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