Health promotion as a subject of the educational curriculum in the Catalan context

Abstract

Objective. Understand how health has been integrated into the Catalan educational curriculum and whether it has been recognised as an additional competence, thereby contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the new European policy for the promotion of health and well-being, called "Health 2020". To reflect on the pedagogical role of the nursing professional and to propose alternatives for improvement to the current situation. Materials and Methods. An intentional and contextual interpretative process was carried out, articulating the process in several stages: delimitation of the areas of curricular knowledge to be analyzed in the stages of compulsory schooling, writing up the results and data analysis. Content analysis was used as the analytical method. Results. In the Primary Education stage, health-related competencies are observed in the fields of environmental knowledge, physical education, education in moral values and the digital field. At the Secondary level, competencies related to health are observed in the scientific-technological, social, physical education, culture and moral values and digital fields. Conclusions. Health promotion is not projected as just another subject in which health content is taught, but as a set of contents included transversally in some of the areas of knowledge, which would represent a barrier to the convenient development of health content. A new health promotion subject is proposed, with content adapted to each stage of education. The nursing professional becomes the most suitable choice to acquire responsibility and leadership and to implement this subject.