Group Work Practice In Health Education For The Aged In Rural Communities From The Perspective Of Active Aging

At present,the aging of our society is deepening,and the health problems of the elderly in rural areas are becoming more and more prominent.It has become an important content of health education for the aged in China to meet the needs of the aged in rural areas for higher health life expectancy and quality of life.In this context,starting from the current situation of health education for the elderly in rural communities,using the professional method of social work to provide effective health education services for the elderly in rural areas,which has important practical significance for maintaining and improving the quality of life of the elderly in rural areas.This study takes the elderly population of Y Village,Longnan City,Gansu Province as the research object,and USES questionnaire survey,unstructured interview and participatory observation as data collection methods.First,80 elderly people were selected by random sampling as the survey samples,and the questionnaire for the Assessment of Active Aging of the Elderly was used to investigate the basic living conditions of the elderly in Y Village and the overall situation of active aging.At the same time,in the interview with the sample old people,the needs of old people in Village Y for their later life are summarized,including the needs for healthy lifestyle,prevention and treatment of senile diseases,positive and healthy attitude and good social participation.Then,through participatory observation,the basic information of health education activities for the elderly in Y Village community was learned,and it was also found that health education for the elderly in the community had such problems as low frequency of activities,single form and weak pertinence,which could not effectively meet the needs of the elderly in the community for a healthy life.Finally,this study adopts the method of group work to carry out health education activities for the elderly in Y Village.The interaction andflexibility of group activities can not only enhance the interest of the elderly in participating in activities,but also facilitate the promotion in rural communities.In the social work practice of this study,the author chose active aging as the theoretical perspective.Active aging refers to the process when people reach old age,in order to improve the quality of life,to maximize the effect of health,participation and security opportunities."Active" emphasizes the willingness and ability of older persons to participate in social activities and to contribute.From the perspective of active aging,health education should not only focus on the improvement of health knowledge and ability of the elderly,but also help the elderly to cultivate a positive attitude of doing something.On this basis,this paper establishes the social work practice framework consisting of knowledge information,behavioral ability and social participation.Knowledge information includes health knowledge and information on the daily health care of the elderly,prevention and treatment of common diseases and prevention of falls;Behavioral competence mainly refers to the confidence and ability of the elderly to cope with and solve health problems;Social participation is the participation opportunity and willingness of the elderly in social activities such as cultural recreation,physical exercise,voluntary service and public affairs;Around the practical framework,social workers recruited 15 elderly people with the ability to participate in health education group for the elderly,and carried out 7 links of health education group activities for the elderly.After the end of the group,the author evaluated the health education activities for the elderly from the two aspects of group satisfaction and work effect.The results show that it is effective to carry out health education services for the aged in rural areas by means of group work,which can not only improve the health status and life quality of the aged,but also help to form a cooperative and mutual social support environment and enhance the enthusiasm of the aged to participate in social activities.However,in the process of practice,there are also deficiencies such as lack of professional ability of social workers,low efficiency of social resources integration and poor independent learning ability of team members.It is suggested to further improve from the aspects of strengthening the construction of professional talent team,integrating the support of social forces and focusing on the long-term mechanism of health education.