ABSTRACT
Workplace health promotion (WHP), as distinct from occupational health and safety, has developed over the last three decades in Australia, even though the worksite is still a relatively underdeveloped setting for health promotion. The Australasian College of Occupational Medicine (1990) issued a position paper on WHP, advocating the creation of supportive environments for health and de-emphasising the individual responsibility of workers. Contemporary workplace health promotion programs follow more closely the tenets of the Ottawa Charter, aiming to produce well-informed participants who attempt to put health-enhancing advice into practice and health-supporting changes achieved largely by the employees themselves. Workplace programs tend to have higher participation rates than do health programs offered at other sites. In addition, there are indirect benefits of WHP in the important contributions made to the improved health of the broader community, such as the transfer of health knowledge, attitudes and behaviour skills.
