Health and Well-Being
Health includes physical, mental and social well-being in the widest sense. Many Transformation Fund projects focused specifically on learning related to health and well-being, but projects dealing with a wide range of other themes also reported increased health and well-being among participants.
Health projects contributed to:
- improved physical health and fitness - Physical Activity Peer Activators , Crewe YMCA Football and Life Academy
- better understanding of health conditions, through providing information and skills to help people manage their health better - Birmingham Arthritis Appeals Trust; Learning Partnerships for Health - WEA
- healthy eating - Bhalo Ranna
Other projects engaged learners who were experiencing mental health problems, providing learning activities to increase their well-being. Details of these projects can be found on the page dealing with adults experiencing mental health difficulties.
Evidence from Transformation Fund projects suggests that informal adult learning can deliver good public value in relation to health and well-being:
- Informal adult learning can communicate health messages effectively and support changes to lifestyles. Outreach workers drawn from local communities proved particularly successful in engaging new learners. Language support enabled health improvement messages to reach groups that are often excluded through language and cultural barriers.
- Individuals can achieve measurable health improvements, such as pain reduction and weight loss, and health prospects for families improve as parents adopt new regimes of healthy eating and exercise.
- Helping people with specific health conditions to access information online can enable them to manage their health better. Tools such as the Open Learning & Physical Activity Map, developed by Learning Partnerships for Health, can help people to find out where they can take part in different forms of exercise in their locality. Learning how to use NHS Choices - Your health, your choices can reduce dependence on visits to the GP.
- Once new learners have established relationships and developed confidence they can often continue to support one another to improve their health and well-being through self-organised activities. This is a very cost-effective way of maintaining health improvement.
- Partnerships are crucial because many different organisations have an interest in improving health and well-being. Projects established partnerships between local authorities, GPs, Primary Care Trusts, Mental Health Trusts, libraries and local voluntary and community organisations, and many of them are planning to continue to work together.
Many kinds of informal adult learning can result in improvements in health and well-being, as people gain confidence and become less isolated through taking part. However informal adult learning that focuses on explicit health messages can support people in managing their existing health conditions and help prevent new conditions developing. In particular:
- Outreach activities can convey health messages to black and minority ethnic groups and communities very effectively, particularly if additional support is provided, such as childcare or support with English language or using ICT.
- Arts-based learning activities can help to improve well-being among people experiencing mental health problems.
- Partnerships between organisations that share an interest in health and well-being can deliver effective learning which not only benefits individuals but also has demonstrable public value.
The World Health Organisation has defined health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity"[1][ Well-being constitutes: 'a dynamic state in which the individual is able to develop their potential, work productively and creatively... It is enhanced when an individual is able to fulfil their personal and social goals' (Govt. Office for Science 2008) .
People who have had more education are also likely to be more healthy, while those with lower levels of education and income die earlier and are affected by disabilities at a younger age.
