Health Educators are required to encourage wellness and healthy lifestyles by educating communities and individuals about habits that can prevent injuries, diseases, and other problems. They prevent illnesses by teaching people the importance of exercise, proper nutrition, how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, among other topics. These professionals need to assess the needs of their clients and then apply corrective methods in order to improve their lifestyles.

Health Educators usually perform many of the following tasks:
• Holding meetings with their patients.
• Creating reports about health problems.
• Teaching methods to avoid some diseases.
• Improving people´s wellness.
• Working with communities.

• Having knowledge of training methods.
• Being able to transmit ideas clearly.
• Having interpersonal abilities.
• Being able to work with both individuals and groups of people.
• Having leadership skills.
• Being creative.
• Having IT skills.
• Being able to deal with people from different backgrounds.
• Having good communication abilities.
• Being self-motivated.

Health Educator jobs require candidates having a bachelor´s degree from a health education program. These courses provide methods and theories related to this sector that are very useful to develop the necessary skills for these jobs. Other helpful alternatives for this area are courses in human development, psychology, and foreign languages. Experience can be obtained through internships or volunteer work in order to have better job opportunities in cases where experience is an important point for employers.

The National Commission of Health Education Credentialing offers the Certified Health Education Specialist for professionals working on this sector. Candidates need to pass an exam about basic areas of responsibility in order to obtain this certification.