Transition From Disease Prevention to Health Promotion Health Promotion

Health issues have been addressed in the past from the perspective of disease prevention rather than focusing on health promotion. Health promotion deals with a wide array of issues that establish the well-being of individuals and society as a whole including policymaking, social factors, health services, individual behavior as well as biology and genetics. These are the determinants of health. (Department of Health and Human Services, 2010).

In 1986 the first International Conference on Health Promotion was held in Ottawa, Canada as a response to the growing concerns and expectations for the improvement of public health throughout the world. The resultant Ottawa Charter defined health promotion as "the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. To reach a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, an individual or group must be able to identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment" (WHO, 1986). This charter delineated the prerequisites for health as peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable eco-system, sustainable...

The World Health Organization (WHO) and other international organizations were tasked with advocating and promoting health and assisting countries in developing the means and ways for health promotion.
The Fourth International Conference on Health Promotion was held in Jakarta in 1997 and resulted in the Jakarta Declaration. This document affirmed the proposition set forth in Ottawa that health promotion does make a difference by developing changing lifestyles, and impacting the social economic and environmental conditions that determine health. The Declaration asserts that health is a basic human right and essential for social and economic growth. Priorities for health promotion in the 21st century are to avoid harming the health of individuals, to protect the environment and ensure sustainable use of resources, to restrict production of and trade in inherently harmful goods and substances, such as tobacco, armaments as well as discourage unhealthy marketing practices, to safeguard both citizen in the market place and the individual in the workplace, and to include equity-focused health impact assessments as a part of policy development. Furthermore, the…