Health Promotion

Definition

• Health Promotion: Process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health.
• Health: Defined by WHO as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease.

Importance of Health Promotion

• Health is influenced by a variety of factors: social, environmental, and economic conditions.
• Health Promotion addresses these factors comprehensively, not just at the individual behavior level.
• Global attention to Health Promotion has increased since the first international conference in 1986.

Ottawa Charter

• Ottawa Charter: Landmark document created during the first international conference on Health Promotion in Ottawa, Canada.
• Influential in shaping the goals and concepts of health promotion.
• Continues to inform health promotion activities today.

Five Action Areas

1. Building Healthy Public Policy

   • Develops policies to support health and make healthy choices easier.
   • Involves legislative, regulatory, organizational, and taxation changes.
   • Examples: Seatbelt laws, smoking restrictions, workplace health regulations.

2. Creating Supportive Environments

   • Focuses on the environments where people live, work, learn, and play.
   • Aims to increase the ability to make health-promoting choices.
   • Examples: Workplace health promotion, restrictions on junk food ads for children.

3. Strengthening Community Action

   • Involves collective efforts of communities to improve health.
   • Examples: Community fun runs, community kitchens, support organizations for HIV/AIDS.

4. Reorienting Health Services

   • Aims to make health systems focus on preventative care and community needs.
   • Considers total needs of individuals.
   • Examples: Training doctors for smoking cessation, health educator roles in medical centers.

5. Developing Personal Skills

   • Supports personal and social development through education and information.
   • Examples: Online programs on heart disease, educational materials on diabetes management.

Three Strategies

1. Advocate

   • Combines individual and social actions to gain political support and health goals.

2. Mediate

   • Reconciles interests of individuals/communities and different sectors to promote health.

3. Enable

   • Engages individuals in health promotion activities to empower them.

Conclusion

• Overview of health promotion emphasizes the significance of the Ottawa Charter and its principles in guiding health promotion efforts.