The goal of health education is to provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to lead healthy lifestyles. A skills-based approach is a best practice for delivering high-quality health education and develop health literacy; the ability to access, understand, appraise, apply, and advocate for health information and services to maintain or enhance one’s own health and the health of others. 

The academic success of America’s youth is strongly linked with their health and is one way to predict adult health outcomes.  School-based health education helps students acquire functional health knowledge, strengthen attitudes and beliefs, and practice skills needed to adopt and maintain healthy behaviors throughout their lives.  DoDEA recognizes Health Education as an essential and integral part of its core values to support and educate the whole child and as such is aligned with Director's Focus 2025 strategic priority: instituting a Multi-Tiered System of Supports to meet the needs of every student.

Schools play a critical role in promoting the health and safety of young people and helping them establish lifelong healthy behaviors. Research shows that school health programs reduce the prevalence of health risk behaviors among youth and have a positive effect on academic performance. 

Basic to health education is a foundation of knowledge about the interactions between the human body, the prevention of disease and other health problems, and the relationship between behavior and health outcomes. Health education encompasses the application of specific skills to concepts related to personal and community health; safety and injury prevention; nutrition and physical activity; mental and emotional health; alcohol tobacco and other drugs; and human development and reproduction. The DoDEA Health Education Content Standards aspire to make all students' health literate and are aligned to the National Health Education Standards.