Adult health learning begins with the notion that everything is health and health is everything. This approach is situated in the theory of social determinants of health (SDOH) (Laverack, 2007), that our health is affected by factors such as the environment, race, food security, gender, work, geography, education, and relationships. SDOH acknowledges that in addition to biology, we are as healthy as our environment and that any effort to address health has to take this larger socio-economic environment into account. SDOH and health promotion theories and strategies encourage the community to continue to be involved in a collective process of...

Health professionals have come to realize that health policy should be directed at reducing health inequalities (Wilkinson, 1996, 2006), and that education of the public is the key to addressing complex health determinants (Tones & Tilford, 2001). The vision is of individuals and communities who come together to learn from one another, to jointly identify issues of concern to their health and well-being, and to decide on the appropriate plan and actions to address these issues. The practices used in this community process are adult education strategies of organizing, facilitating, and working collectively for change. In line with this vision, this...

Adult educators are in a position to suggest inclusive learning models that can help health researchers, health practitioners, and members of the public at large bridge gaps between laboratory science and adoption of medical discoveries. They have a key role to play in working with communities in assessing their health needs, learning with them and teaching them about health, and involving them in research processes on matters that affect their health.

Health research is often perceived as unrelated to the day-to-day health concerns of individuals and communities, for several reasons. The first stems from health policy research findings that a...

This chapter examines various developments in Canadian health care, particularly how health care in Canada has evolved to meet the needs of community and how community has been involved in changing health care. In particular, the role of adult education – teaching, learning, co-researching, and activism – is highlighted, since adult education principles have often been an integral part of changing policies and practices. This chapter examines adult education’s role in working with the community formally and informally to create change and to strengthen the health of communities.

Although developments with respect to health in Canada have often-times been driven...

HIV and AIDS research in Africa continues to demonstrate that the health of an individual is a complex issue involving the social, cultural, spiritual, physical, economic, and political aspects of African communities’ collective lives. To be successful in this complex context of HIV/AIDS, those working in the area of health and HIV/AIDS education need to research, train, and educate themselves and others on local and indigenous knowledge attributes. Although there are many health educators who work in the area of HIV/AIDS, we see the primary beneficiaries of the content of this chapter as nurses, peer educators, public health activists, social...

The shift by the Canadian nation state from an assimilationist educational and health policy agenda for Aboriginals to one that supports self-determination must be formally recognized and integrated into educational programming at all levels, including formal schooling and informal learning in the community. Consequently, health care professionals working with Aboriginal people need to consider the socio-historical reality of colonial relationships in health care to reduce the reproduction of oppressive relationships in teaching and learning processes. They need to shift from a paternalistic relationship with Aboriginal people to one of dialogue and co-scription consistent with the principles of adult education articulated...

In the past few decades we have learned much about how many people are affected by low literacy skills, and how such skills are related to poorer health outcomes. Professionals working in both health and education can benefit by knowing the importance of this relationship and by becoming familiar with examples of how research in this field can be used to improve their practice.

There are many definitions of ‘health,’ ‘literacy,’ and the intermediating concept ‘health literacy’ – and there is no consensus yet. Perhaps most often, people think of health as the absence of disease. At least this is...

As this volume makes abundantly clear, health and education are intricately linked on many dimensions. Both health promotion and health education recognize that a complex relationship among social factors – including education and literacy – affects health and vice versa. According to UNESCO (1997, p. 5), ‘Adult education offers significant opportunities to provide relevant, equitable and sustainable access to health knowledge.’

Women’s health experiences are of particular concern because women the world over are the informal health care providers and health care knowledge holders for their families and communities, yet they have the least access to health care resources and...

This chapter explores the question: What do health education teachers need to know about teaching and learning to do good work? I try to answer this by drawing on knowledge from the general field of teaching and learning regarding what we know about student learning in general. I also consider a particular form of thinking employed by health professionals – clinical reasoning – and consider how this can best be taught. As I explore these two themes I am aware that the kind of learning people do around health behaviours, the knowledge that practitioners and patients need to acquire regarding...

Integral to public health nursing practice is knowledge and application of adult learning theory that supports the transfer of information from the sciences of public health to individuals, families, groups, and populations. This chapter details ‘why’ this transfer occurs: to demonstrate evidenced-informed practice and accountability to meet the public health goals to protect, promote, and restore the peoples’ health. The chapter also suggests ‘how’ this transfer might occur: through the author’s Framework for Population-Focused Nursing Practice, a teaching framework which integrates adult learning concepts and principles with public health and nursing knowledge. Examples are given of how adult learning is...

Recently, my 90-year-old father suffered a spell of dizziness and weakness that made us fearful he was having a stroke. We dialled 911 and rushed him to the emergency room. Fortunately, his ECG and bloodwork checked out normal for his age, and in less than two hours he was free to return home. Before we left, however, a kindly nurse approached us and explained that her role was to advocate for patients over 65. Among other things, this meant determining what their needs might be by way of grab bars, mobility aids, and the like, which, if met, could keep...

Clinicians’ teaching roles and responsibilities are diverse and challenging. They teach a variety of learners: undergraduate students, clinical clerks, residents, patients, and families, as well as other health care professionals such as nurses, counsellors, and physiotherapists. They teach in a variety of urgent and non-urgent clinical settings (e.g., emergency departments, outpatient clinics, operating rooms). They may also teach in non-clinical settings: small group seminars or large classroom settings. Across this diversity of pedagogical landscapes, clinicians are expected to teach medical knowledge, procedural skills, clinical reasoning, and professional behaviour and judgment. In chapter 9 in this book, Brookfield speaks similarly to...

This chapter offers an introduction to reflective practice in allied health from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Reflective practice is recognized as an important dimension of adult learning, and as an approach to lifelong learning and professional development in the professions. The chapter is aimed at future and current practitioners and written by an occupational therapist, a speech language pathologist, an audiologist, and a registered nurse. It begins with a discussion of reflective practice and an examination of different types of reflection, followed by three case studies. The case studies illuminate how reflective practice may be used to advance adult...

Achieving the goal of providing quality health care requires health professionals to determine what they understand by health and how they choose to implement health care. Increasingly in the twenty-first century health professionals, provider institutions, health professions, and clients are seeking collaborative forms of health care where clients participate in clinical decision-making and health care actions. In this environment health professionals are called upon to be educators, consultants, and partners rather than deliverers of intervention in the pursuit of illness remediation. In this context education has important roles to play as a practice approach, a therapeutic strategy, a means of...

According to Statistics Canada (1994), ‘The continuous and effective upgrading of Canada’s human resources has become an essential condition of ensuring long term growth and success in the global economy. In the coming years, the changing demands of the workforce will put a lot of pressure on Canadian workers. Traditional jobs, with work patterns and skills that remain stable over the worker’s entire career, are disappearing (pp. 5−6).

Echoes of this call continue to be heard today (CHSRF, 2006; Government of Ontario, 2005; Suter & Deutschlander, 2010; WHO, 2009). Providing quality health care for sports’ participants and education for the professionals...

Interprofessional Education (IPE) is a global movement, driven by factors intent on transforming communities and society in positive ways (Villarreal, 1980; Cribb, 2000; Borrill, West, Shapiro, & Rees, 2000). The Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE) (2002) defines IPE primarily as ‘occasions when two or more professions learn from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care’ and includes ‘learning in academic and work based settings before and after qualification’ (n.p.). CAIPE argues that ‘no one profession working in isolation has the expertise to respond adequately and effectively to the complexity of many service users...

This book has brought together a number of professionals in the areas of health and adult learning to share elements of their practice and to contribute to a growing knowledge basis on the intersection of these seemingly disparate areas. Collectively, the writers – from fields as varied as adult education, nursing, medicine, sports therapy, and occupational therapy – have contributed to an emergent field of practice that was called adult health learning in chapter 1, a field that has the potential to transform how we work and how we interact when it comes to issues of health.

One of the...