Approaches to Health Promotion

Health promotion is defined as the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health. It is a holistic approach that moves beyond the focus on individual behavior toward a wide range of societal and environmental interventions. It was first emphasized in the Ottawa Charter on Health Promotion.

The global present context of a ‘triple burden of diseases’ creates an urgent need to foster sustainable health systems, promote intersectoral action to build healthy public policies, and nurture leadership for public health focusing on health promotion. Health promotion is tuned to respond to developments outside the traditional health sector that have a direct or indirect bearing on health such as changes in patterns of consumption, globalization, and urbanization.

The adoption of healthy behavior by individuals is predicated on wider community awareness and acceptance. The health promotion approach utilizes upstream interventions focusing on improving fundamental social and economic determinants of health, which are elucidated in the chapter.

Public health approaches to health promotion – tailored to specific behaviors, specific sites, and by using specific media tailored to the local context – have been elucidated using illustrative case studies. Methodological issues and challenges in the evaluation of the health promotion approach have been addressed.