A Multisensory Multilevel Health Education Model for Diverse Communities

• Main Authors: Olajide Williams, Ewelina M. Swierad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-03-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: Socio-Ecological Model; public health education; Stroke Education; health communication; health promotion
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/5/872

Owing to their enormous capacity to improve health and save lives, effective health promotion frameworks have been at the forefront of public health research and practice. A multilevel focus, as exemplified by the Socio-Ecological Model (SEM), is one common denominator among these frameworks. The SEM highlights important social and ecological influences on health behavior by delineating the different levels of influence. These include public policy, organizational, community, interpersonal, and intrapersonal levels, which, when considered during the development of health promotion campaigns, especially those that focus on health education, strengthen the potential influence of that campaign on targeted behaviors. However, the SEM lacks a complimenting framework for understanding the role of conventional and unconventional approaches to health education; that is, how to design a health education intervention that considers both the context, such as the social and ecological levels of influence, and the best approaches for developing and delivering the health education in a manner that optimizes their effectiveness in today’s modern and increasingly diverse world. Addressing this gap, the current article presents an integrative Multisensory Multilevel Health Education Model (MMHEM), which incorporates three key domains—(1) Art (innovativeness/creativity), (2) Culture (cultural tailoring), and (3) Science (evidence-based), while promoting the importance of considering the socio-ecological levels of influence on targeted behaviors. Using a successful health education intervention, called the Hip Hop Stroke, we deconstruct the Multisensory Multilevel Health Education Model and discuss its potential role as a guide for developing public health education interventions.