Health Promotion of Children and Adolescents – School Health

The value of society’s investment in healthy children and therefore in future healthy adults, the enormous importance of prevention for children and adolescents, the formation of health behaviors from an early age, the school population growth with large numbers of children from other countries, were the inspiration for the emergence of this postgraduate specialization.
Historically, the promotion of students’ health in the school context as well as the education are inherently linked concepts, since:
• Healthy children are more likely to learn more effectively,
• Education plays an important role in the future economic welfare and maintenance of children’s health,
• Students who feel good about themselves and important adults are less likely to engage in high-risk behaviors and are more likely to perform better academically.
• Promoting the health of school staff leads to greater job satisfaction and reduced absenteeism,
• Teachers are healthy role models for students,
• Promoting school health can help schools as well as policy makers achieve academic, social and economic goals.
Therefore, the most effective way to improve the health of children and adolescents is to train specialists working with children and adolescents. The specialization is mainly aimed to health and education professionals such as pediatricians, preschool, primary and secondary school teachers, special education educators, nurses, social workers, psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, as well as all those specialists who wish to occupy with children’s health professionally.
The purpose of the specialization is to provide with the theoretical knowledge and skills to postgraduate students in subjects of pediatrics, prevention, health education and promotion. More specifically, the specialization covers topics related to public health policies, epidemiology, biostatistics, One Health, environment and health, communication strategies in public health, public health in the school setting, health risk behaviors of children and adolescents, promotion of mental health of children and adolescents, counseling skills, first aid, methodology of health education and promotion, nutrition and physical activity, special education and others.

Curriculum

1st Semester

2nd Semester

3rd Semester

4th Semester