Learning and Applying Health Disparity Education through Texas TEKS Curriculum

Abstract

As the US population grows in diversity, so has the number of health disparities. Health disparities continue to affect a large portion of the minority population resulting in negative health outcomes. Education remains a key element in the prevention of these adverse health conditions, especially among the ethnically diverse youth. Health education presently fails to be effectively implemented in the activities and instruction in classrooms, which is greatly impacted by the lack of knowledge and training of educators. Through the development and implementation of a new Texas health-science curriculum, educators can acquire the skills and framework necessary to approach a diverse classroom on good health practices. This program will identify the concepts of cultural competency and cultural influences to allow instructors the capacity to adapt a curriculum that suits all students. The analysis and reconstruction of current TEKS curricula is the purpose of this research study. Through studying these sets of data, an increased understanding in health education can be formulated and relayed to grade school level students. Thus, by the increase in health education students of minority can develop good behavioral norms; reducing the risks associated with rising health disparities.