Standards for Health Education

Standards-based health education helps ensure curricula and instruction are designed to establish, promote, and support health-enhancing behaviors for students in all grade levels – emphasizing planned, sequential learning from pre-kindergarten through grade 12. Health education standards outline what students should know and be able to do by the end of specified grades, serving as a valuable tool for schools in selecting, designing, or revising curricula. 1

Multiple professional organizations working in health education have recent or current efforts to update standards for health education. Versions of these standards are available here and here . CDC will be reviewing its tools and resources for schools to determine if updates to CDC materials are needed to reflect any recent or upcoming changes to standards-based health education.

Although learning standards provide a framework for health education, teachers, administrators, and policymakers, should also take into account the characteristics of an effective health education curriculum.