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The Secret to Health Promotion: How to Take Control of Your Health?
With the increasing number of global health issues, health promotion has become one of the focuses of people's attention. According to the 1986 World Health Organization (WHO) Ottawa Charter, health promotion is a process that helps people increase their control over their health. It goes beyond individual behavioural change to encompass multifaceted social and environmental interventions aimed at improving determinants of health such as income, housing, food security, employment and good working conditions.
Health promotion is a broad, multifaceted approach to helping people take control of and improve their own health.
It is important to distinguish between health education and health promotion. Health education refers to structured learning activities aimed at improving health literacy, while health promotion encompasses social and environmental interventions that support healthy behaviors and lifestyles. WHO emphasizes that health promotion involves not only changes in individual behavior, but also efforts to modify the social determinants of health.
Health promotion also requires the adoption of public policies that address the determinants of health, including income and housing. Recent research has used the term "Health in All Policies (HiAP)" which aims to integrate health into all public policies. This approach is consistent with the concept of health equity, which is one of the focuses of nongovernmental organization (NGO) efforts towards social justice and human rights.
Health promotion requires coordinated action involving government, health and other social organizations.
The history of health promotion dates back to the 1974 Lalonde Report, which proposed strategies designed to make individuals and organizations more proactive in taking responsibility for influencing their mental and physical health. Furthermore, the 1979 U.S. Surgeon General's Healthy People report states that health promotion "seeks to develop community and individual measures to help people develop lifestyles that will maintain and enhance health."
The concept of health promotion has evolved over time. In 1986, Jake Epp, then Minister of Health and Welfare of Canada, released the "Achieving Health for All" framework, further emphasizing "self-care", "helping each other" and "healthy environment" as the key elements of health. Three major mechanisms of promotion.
Health promotion is not just the responsibility of the health sector, but involves wider lifestyles and well-being.
Currently, the theoretical framework of health promotion shows diversity in its implementation. These include the health belief model, the transtheoretical model, and social cognitive theory, among others. These frameworks provide a foundation for health professionals to design multi-level behavior change interventions.
As health promotion has spread, many strategies have been proposed to achieve its goals. These strategies include community-based interventions, policy-level advocacy, setting up basic health promotion, improving health literacy and social mobilization. For example, community-based health promotion interventions can encourage local communities to act together to improve health problems.
Global health promotion efforts also reflect the importance of digital health interventions. Whether it’s mobile health (mHealth) initiatives in Africa or health promotion in other regions, digital technology is enabling health education and preventive care to reach neglected populations in real time.
Health promotion interventions must be continually evaluated for their effectiveness to ensure that resources are used efficiently and intended outcomes are achieved.
When evaluating health promotion performance, the quality of data and the long-term impact behind a single activity also pose challenges. Nevertheless, many studies have shown the effectiveness of health promotion interventions, including tobacco control, promotion of physical activity, and healthy eating programs in schools.
Finally, the environmental setting approach to health promotion emphasizes community involvement and collaboration. According to WHO, every community can become a place for health promotion, and it is expected that more comprehensive health promotion can be achieved through social collaboration.
In this new era of health, everyone should be aware of the role they play in taking control of their health and think: Are you ready to take your health into your own hands?
