ABSTRACT
Community pharmacists are ideally placed to act as health promoters. Health promotion is commonly perceived as being about lifestyle change and personal choice and the pharmacist’s role tends to be discussed in that context. However, health promotion has a wider meaning, incorporating a range of actions with the potential to improve health. This chapter will present health promotion and the pharmacist’s role in its wider context. It will begin by presenting definitions and models for health promotion and will then go on to consider three myths: the myth of individual control over health, the myth of the unenlightened public and the myth that information alone changes behaviour. Finally we review health promotion in pharmacy practice and consider the evidence for pharmacists’ contribution to health promotion.
