What is health promotion?
Most health promotion is
underpinned by the Ottawa Charter for Health
Promotion which was established at the first
international conference on health promotion
held in Ottawa, Canada in November 1986.
Health Promotion
Health promotion is the process
of enabling people to increase control over, and
to improve, their health. To reach a state of
complete physical mental and social wellbeing,
an individual or group must be able to identify
and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs,
and to change or cope with the environment.
Health is, therefore, seen as a resource for
everyday life, not the objective of living.
Health is a positive concept emphasizing social
and personal resources, as well as physical
capacities. Therefore, health promotion is not
just the responsibility of the health sector,
but goes beyond healthy lifestyles to wellbeing.
Prerequisites for health
The fundamental conditions and
resources for health are:
Improvement in health requires a
secure foundation in these basic prerequisites.
Advocate
Good health is a major resource
for social, economic and personal development
and an important dimension of quality of life.
Political, economic, social, cultural,
environmental, behavioural and biological
factors can all favour health or be harmful to
it. Health promotion action aims at making these
conditions favourable through advocacy for
health.
Enable
Health promotion focuses on
achieving equity in health. Health promotion
action aims at reducing differences in current
health status and ensuring equal opportunities
and resources to enable all people to achieve
their fullest health potential. This includes a
secure foundation in a supportive environment,
access to information, life skills and
opportunities for making healthy choices. People
cannot achieve their fullest health potential
unless they are able to take control of those
things which determine their health. This must
apply equally to women and men.
Mediate
The prerequisites and prospects
for health cannot be ensured by the health
sector alone. More importantly, health promotion
demands coordinated action by all concerned: by
governments, by health and other social and
economic sectors, by non-government and
voluntary organizations, by local authorities,
by industry and by the media. People in all
walks of life are involved as individuals,
families and communities. Professional and
social groups and health personnel have a major
responsibility to mediate between differing
interests in society for the pursuit of health.
Health promotion strategies and
programmes should be adapted to the local needs
and possibilities of individual countries and
regions to take into account differing social,
cultural and economic systems.
Health Promotion Action Means
Building Healthy Public Policy
Health promotion goes beyond
health care. It puts health on the agenda of
policy-makers in all sectors and at all levels,
directing them to be aware of the health
consequences of their decisions and to accept
their responsibilities for health.
Health promotion policy combines
diverse but complementary approaches including
legislation, fiscal measures, taxation and
organizational change. It is coordinated action
that leads to health, income and social policies
that foster greater equity. Joint action
contributes to ensuring safer and healthier
goods and services, healthier public services,
and cleaner, more enjoyable environments.
Health promotion policy requires
the identification of obstacles to the adoption
of healthy public policies in non-health
sectors, and ways of removing them. The aim must
be to make the healthier choice the easier
choice for policy-makers as well.
Create supportive environments
Our societies are complex and
interrelated. Health cannot be separated from
other goals. The inextricable links between
people and their environment constitute the
basis for a socio-ecological approach to health.
The overall guiding principle for the world,
nations, regions and communities alike is the
need to encourage reciprocal maintenance - to
take care of each other, our communities and our
natural environment. The conservation of natural
resources throughout the world should be
emphasized as a global responsibility.
Changing patterns of life, work
and leisure have a significant impact on health.
Work and leisure should be a source of health
for people. The way society organizes work
should help create a healthy society. Health
promotion generates living and working
conditions that are safe, stimulating,
satisfying and enjoyable.
Systematic assessment of the
health impact of a rapidly changing environment
- particularly in areas of technology, work,
energy production and urbanization is essential
and must be followed by action to ensure
positive benefit to the health of the public.
The protection of the natural and built
environments and the conservation of natural
resources must be addressed in any health
promotion strategy.
Strengthen community action
Health promotion works through
concrete and effective community action in
setting priorities, making decisions, planning
strategies and implementing them to achieve
better health. At the heart of this process is
the empowerment of communities, their ownership
and control of their own endeavours and
destinies.
Community development draws on
existing human and material resources in the
community to enhance self-help and social
support, and to develop flexible systems
for strengthening public participation and
direction of health matters. This requires full
and continuous access to information, learning
opportunities for health, as well as funding
support.
Develop personal skills
Health promotion supports
personal and social development through
providing information, education for health and
enhancing life skills. By so doing, it increases
the options available to people to exercise more
control over their own health and over their
environments, and to make choices conducive to
health.
Enabling people to learn
throughout life, to prepare them for all of its
stages and to cope with chronic illness and
injuries is essential. This has to be
facilitated in school, home, work and community
settings. Action is required through
educational, professional, commercial and
voluntary bodies, and within the institutions
themselves.
Reorient health services
The responsibility for health
promotion in health services is shared among
individuals, community groups, health
professionals, health service institutions and
governments. They must work together towards a
health care system which contributes to the
pursuit of health.
The role of the health sector
must move increasingly in a health promotion
direction, beyond its responsibility for
providing clinical and curative services. Health
services need to embrace an expanded mandate
which is sensitive and respects cultural needs.
This mandate should support the needs of
individuals and communities for a healthier
life, and open channels between the health
sector and broader social, political, economic
and physical environmental components.
Reorienting health services also
requires stronger attention to health research
as well as changes in professional education and
training. This must lead to a change of attitude
and organization of health services, which
refocuses on the total needs of the individual
as a whole person.
Moving into the future
Health is created and lived by
people within the settings of their everyday
life; where they learn, work, play and love.
Health is created by caring for oneself and
others, by being able to take decisions and have
control over one's life circumstances, and by
ensuring that the society one lives in creates
conditions that allow the attainment of health
by all its members.
Caring, holism and ecology are
essential issues in developing strategies for
health promotion. Therefore, those involved
should take as a guiding principle that, in each
phase of planning, implementation and evaluation
of health promotion activities, women and men
should become equal partners.
The Ottawa Charter for Health
Promotion
