Health Promotion Practice
Last year the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) launched a new journal called Health Promotion Practice, which is sent quarterly to SOPHE members. It’s a practical journal that fills a need for public health practitioners. The editor describes the journal as seeking "to advance the application of health promotion and education through the stimulation and publication of articles detailing the applied work of health promotion practice and policy." The journal features six departments:
Other features include book and media reviews and articles done by working professionals all devoted to improving health promotion and education practices. If you would like more information about the journal and becoming a SOPHE member go to their web site
www.sophe.org.
Teach a Feature
The Health Educator's Bookshelf lists 60 books and several journals to aid you in your health education work. We recommend you bookmark this page for easy reference www3.doh.wa.gov/here//bookshelf/HERE_BookshelfListing.aspx . The items in the bookshelf have been recommended by your peers and colleagues. For easy reference, the bookshelf is divided into 11 categories. The most recently reviewed book is, "Working With Religious Congregations: A Guide for Health Professionals." At the bottom of each page of book listings we've provided a link to a list of regional libraries in Washington State for you to search and locate the book you're interested in. To aid you in a journal search, we've provided a link to the University of Washington journal search page; this link is located at the bottom of the journals page. If you come across a health promotion or education book or journal and we don't have it listed, please let us know by email to
HERE@doh.wa.gov.
Mentor of the Month
Margo Harris
Margo Harris is a self-employed School and Community Specialist, providing consulting and contract services here in Washington State. She earned a BA in Psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a MAT in Public Health from the University of Massachusetts, including K-12 teaching certification.
From the time she finished graduate school she's been teaching college level courses for such schools as Cortland State College, Ohio University, Western Washington University and Antioch University. She's facilitated classes such as, smoking cessation and advance directives (e.g. do not resuscitate orders) and workshops for K-12 educators. She has also given presentations to health care providers. Margo has co-authored a textbook titled "Designing School Health Curricula." She has also written K-12 curricula and patient education materials. Other job experiences include direct patient education and working with the American Lung Association on the local, state and national level.
Margo is passionate about making connections. She works especially hard to increase the quality and quantity of health education in schools. She strives to improve students' knowledge of health and to help them see the connections between the health choices they make today and the lifetime effects of those choices. With adults she strives to connect them with accurate health information, skills to effectively access and use the health care system, and opportunities to maintain healthy lifestyles. Margo wishes someone had explained to her that public health is a business like any other enterprise, whether for-profit, or non-profit and you need to learn business skills, not just public health skills. She recalls a trainer's comment, "To do business in the 90s, you have to be fast, flexible, focused and friendly." She sees future challenges from increased competition for available resources and the need to stretch the resources we have. Margo notes, "We will need to work tirelessly in our jobs and our professional organizations to keep public health in the public eye, adequately funded and recognized as a community asset needed by all community members." Professionally Margo is active in Pacific Northwest SOPHE (PNW SOPHE) and National
SOPHE. She really enjoys keeping the PNW SOPHE job bank www.pnwhealth.com/jobbank.htm, web page
www.pnwhealth.com/pnwsophe.htm and PNWHEALTH listserv going, (For information on how to join this list serve click here:
www3.doh.wa.gov/here//connections/listservs.html.) In between work and volunteering she's busy gardening, walking her dog and keeping track of her two cats and husband. She'd be happy to discuss her experiences in patient education interventions, school health issues, curriculum design, technology applications in health education and partnerships/networking. Margo can be contacted by email
margo@pnwhealth.com or phone 206-932-1273.
What's New
Click on these helpful forms
Do you have a community project to add?
Submission Form -- Community Projects
Do you have health education materials to add?
Submission Form -- Materials Exchange
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WA and receive this newsletter monthly?
Add Yourself to the H.E.R.E. Rolodex
H.E.R.E.inWA Team
Office of Health Promotion
Washington State Department of Health
Theresa Fuller, Don Martin, and Jennifer Livingston
PO Box 47833
Olympia, WA 98504-7833
(360) 236-3736
HERE@doh.wa.gov