The Value and Implementation of Health Education in Finland

Health education is an established school subject in Finland which is somewhat pioneering in the context of a nation-wide education and its contents and goals. However, the numerous health-related concepts that are partly overlapping make the definition, planning, and implementation of health education challenging. The purpose of this article is to discuss and illustrate the entity of health education through the various related concepts of health education and their mutual hierarchy. At its most concrete, successful health promotion leads to high-level health skills that are manifested as the ability to cherish health and well-being at the level of the behavior of individual people and communities. At the individual level, health skills are symbolized with the flame of life as the outcome of health promotion, health education, and the school subject of health education. Health skills include health awareness, health sensitivity and health literacy. In addition, the importance of caring teacherhood as the means of health education is discussed.