Curriculum evaluation of health education and promotion in elementary third grade textbooks based on health system development components

 The selection of healthy behaviors in elementary school is very important; therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the curriculum of health education and promotion in elementary third grade textbooks based on health system development components.

 This descriptive study was performed via content analysis using Shannon Entropy Technique. The content was evaluated in terms of responsive design (elementary third grade textbooks), 12 main components and 58 sub-components of health education and promotion.

 The results of Shannon Entropy content analysis showed that by evaluating all 6 books of the elementary third grade, the mental health component with 645 cases had the highest frequency, and the least frequency was related to disability with 7 cases. Of the 2415 frequencies of health components in the third grade schoolchildren, 39,456, 60, 54, 295,41, 539, 645, 12, 19, 7 and 248 cases were related to physical health, nutritional health, circumambient health, environmental health, family health, safety incidents, physical activity, mental health, prevention of high-risk behaviors, disease control and prevention, disabilities as well as public and school health, respectively.

 The findings indicated that among health components in elementary third grade textbooks, the nutritional and mental health components had the highest coefficient of importance and disability component had the lowest coefficient of importance. Therefore, teaching health components in schools can be done by managing, planning, educating and paying attention to the type of nutrition and health behaviors of students. Moreover, not paying attention to it will harm not only the students but also the society.