Health Promotion and Education

Collaborating Centres

Education Development Centre, Inc. (EDC)

EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs

World Health Organization Collaborating Centre to Promote Health through Schools and Communities Since 1997

Education Development Centre, Inc. (EDC), an international non-profit organization founded in 1958, applies research and education strategies to address challenges in health, education, and social justice. With close to 100o employees (600 U.S. and 400 in over 20 offices worldwide, we are united in or belief that learning is the most powerful and liberating force in human development.

EDC’s division of Health and Human Development Programs, with approximately 135 staff, pursues its mission to promote healthy, safe lifestyles and environments where people live, learn and work. Schools are settings where millions of young people learn and adults work, connected to the families and communities in which they love. The academic performance of students, the morale, attendance, and quality of teaching and learning are inextricably tied to the physical, mental, and social health of students and staff.

Working with WHO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and with AMRO and other WHO Regional Offices, EDC/HHD conducts many activities in support of health promotion  and disease prevention and WHO’s Global School Health Initiative and FRESH (Focused Resources for Effective School Health).   Highlights follow:

Assessment, Planning and Evaluation

With WHO, EDC/HHD has created the Rapid Assessment and Action Planning Tool (RAAPP) for ministries of education and health to conduct together, assessing five core elements of  inter-ministerial capacity to deliver school health programs. The RAAPP has been conducted in Indonesia, Bolivia, Nigeria, and now the Gujarat province of India.

With WHO and Education International, EDC has designed teaching and learning activities for teacher union leaders in 15+ countries to protect teachers against HIV and AIDS, educate students and serve as educators and change agents in their communities. Preliminary evaluations show significant gains in teachers’ confidence and competence to teach the lessons.

Synthesis of Research and Publications

On behalf of WHO, EDC/HHD has synthesized the literature to distill findings on the most effective strategies to address key issues in schools. For example, for WHO’s Technical Series, we have produced documents on how to address nutrition, reproductive health, violence, and substance abuse. Examining the theories and research behind life skills, reports and teaching materials outline ways to use this important pedagogical technique.

Curriculum, Tool Development, Training and Technical Assistance

For WHO, EDC/HHD has developed guidelines for national and local-level decision makers about tobacco policy in education environments, as well as curriculum materials for students, based on WHO’s Framework Convention for Tobacco Control. This different approach gives students the skills to promote tobacco free schools, understand The Convention, and gain media literacy skills to see through the many ways in which tobacco products are marketed directly to them. Piloted in Africa and Mexico, these materials are now being adapted in a pilot study in Uruguay and WHO has translated them into French and Spanish.

Health and Family Life Education (HFLE), Caribbean Regional Curriculum Framework, the first ever for the region, developed for UNICEF, in collaboration with CARICOM, UNESCO, PAHO and others provides curriculum standards and sample lessons for teaching young people ages 9-14 around 4 important themes: sexuality and sexual health, nutrition and fitness, environment, and interpersonal relationships and violence.

In partnership with the Bertelsmann Foundation in Germany, EDC/HHD is collaborating on the Anschub.de (Good and Healthy Schools Project) designed to involve Bundeslanders across Germany in appreciating how education can be improved by health promotion activities. EDC/HHD’s collaboration is concentrating on strategies for building national, regional and local level alliances to sustain the project over time and the development of advocacy tools that present the arguments for why education and health are interdependent and strategies to implement the ideas.

Capacity Building

With WHO and partners in China, the Health Promoting School Approach, beginning with an emphasis on nutrition and now moving to address multiple issues, has expanded rapidly.

EDC/HHD serves as the Secretariat for Intercamhs (International Alliance for Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Schools), which is a membership organization of researchers, policy makers and practitioners dedicated to improving mental health promotion and prevention of mental health disorders in schools.

Leadership and Advocacy Initiatives

With UNESCO's Office for the Caribbean, with UN AIDS, including PAHO, EDC/HHD is developing an advocacy leadership campaign for the Caribbean region, aimed at senior level ministers and staff in ministries of education with the purpose of strengthening the education sector response to HIV and AIDS with a comprehensive strategy that unites policy, curriculum, services, and a healthy physical and psycho-social environment, all elements of a Health Promoting School.

Contact Information: http://www.hhd.org;http://www.edc.org  

There are MANY activities that EDC has done jointly with WHO:

We developed several documents for the WHO Information Series on School Health

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/media/en/family_life.pdf

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/media/en/94.pdf

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/media/en/sch_local_action_en.pdf

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/media/en/sch_skills4health_03.pdf

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/media/en/sch_violence_prevention_en.pdf

Plus a document on alcohol use prevention, which is currently in press.

We were the Secretariat the produced the reports from the WHO Expert Committee on Comprehensive School Health

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/resources/expert_reports/en/index.html

For AMRO/PAHO (WHO Regional Office for the Americas), we authored a publication on Life Skills

       http://www.paho.org/English/HPP/HPF/ADOL/Lifeskills.pdf

and assembled the Proceedings of the first meeting of the Caribbean Network of Health-Promoting Schools

       http://www.paho.org/English/AD/SDE/HS/CNHPS.pdf

On behalf of WHO, we authored the EFA 2000 Assessment Thematic Study on School Health and Nutrition;

        http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001235/123549e.pdf

We developed, together with Education International, teaching materials for HIV prevention in Africa, and have been part of the EI/WHO/ /EDC teacher training project to prevent HIV infection for several years:

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/resources/sch_document61_HIV_prevention_env2.pdf

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/hivaids_project/en/index.html

In partnership with WHO, we are facilitating the development of a national HIV/AIDS curriculum in Botswana

       http://hhd.org/hhdnews/hhdstories/fs_07_2003.asp

Together with WHO we also developed and pilot tested the Rapid Assessment and Action Planning Process (RAAPP) in Indonesia, Nigeria, and most recently in India, to assess a country’s capacity for school health. We have also designed the following part of WHO’s website about this project:

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/assessment/raapp/en/index.html

Together with WHO, we have provided technical assistance to a health-promoting school project in Zhejiang Province, China, since 2000 and ongoing:

       http://www.hhd.org/hhdnews/hhdstories/fs_08_2004.asp

       http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/dah402?ijkey=13BEALwNYWi8Y&keytype=ref

We have developed a Model School Tobacco Control Intervention and a Tobacco Control Policy Guide for Schools. Both are currently in press.

We have two web features about part of the pilot test of the school intervention:

       http://www.hhd.org/hhdnews/hhdstories/fs_02_2004_b.asp

       http://www.hhd.org/hhdnews/hhdstories/ar_03_2003.asp

From 1998-2001 we assisted WHO in facilitating and reporting about Mega Country meetings that brought together representatives from the world’s largest countries responsible for school health (MoE and MoH).

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/mega/en/

       http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/mega/meetings/en/index.html