Health Promotion Activities - Coursework Example

Health Promotion Table of Contents Introduction 2 Health Promotion 3 Models adopted in Health Promotion 4 The Case 7 Conclusion 12 References 15 Introduction World Health Organisation has rightly defined health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (WHO, 1994). In the process of development of health promotion model, health has been acknowledged as: “the Antithesis of Diseases” (health is a range of being normal), “Balance State” (epidemiology: cycle of health-illness-death. It identifies population at high risk), “Growth” (individual psychological and physiological wellness in every life stage), “Functionality” (physiological and psychological functions that influences people and environment relationship), “Wholeness” ( individual health is been characterized with reference to its belonging group, environment, society and area), “Well – Being” (physical, mental and social good health), “Transcendence” (body - mind –spirit), “Empowerment” (power of self-control and mastery towards life changing forces), “Resource” (resource for satisfying everyday demands and challenge of life), along with nine components: social environment, physical environment, genetic endowment, individual response (behavior and biology), health care, disease, health and function, well-being, and prosperity. (Gorin, S & Arnold, J., 2006) Public health is method of protection of peoples’ health through education, promotional activities, and research along with prevention strategies for diseases. Health Promotion Health promotion is a step taken by government, institutions, NGOs and other parties to educate and help people regarding their health by increasing self control and hygienic habits. An individual or a group must be flexible with changing environment and satisfying their need in a process of achieving complete health (social, physical and mental). Under the purview of health promotion, the range and levels of systems are been underpin by three central processes. The processes involve advocating (for broad conditions that are more supportive of health), enabling (people to take control over factors that affect their health) and mediating (inter-sectorally coordinated health). HPA-S (Health Promotion Agenda Setting) is a process adopted for identifying problems as well as prioritizing problems and coming out with alternative solutions for setting agendas in health promotions. It also indirectly focuses on people, critical mass stage which deals with risk behavior by offering practitioner for guiding process of innovation on health policies focused on population by providing education related to health problems. Models adopted in Health Promotion The two models that are majorly adopted for health promotion are the Ottawa Charter, and the Hamilton-Bhatti Model. Ottawa Charter Model, act as a blueprint since 1986, in activities related to health promotion. It has global influence. Strategies adopted under this model are as follows: 1) Formation of public policy 2) Supportive environments 3) An action for strengthening community 4) Development of personal skills 5) Health services reorientation The strategy of ‘Formation of public policy’ has been adopted for encouraging people in order to take action for making choice of health an easy step through identifying and addressing key obstacles under procedures and policies. It also emphasize on collective involvement of individuals and controlling factors determining health and development of personal skills and coping practices is specifically used for the promotional activities related towards the healthy behaviors and habits. (Hershfield, L., n.d.) The two models that have utilized few of the strategies of the Ottawa Charter Model are “Ron Labonte’s Three Model of Health Promotion” and “Keleher’s Framework for Health Promotion Actions”. Ron Labonte’s Model works on health issues ranging from individual to population. This model focuses on medical (especially on erasing sickness), behavioral (lifestyle hygiene’s) and socio- environmental models (total health experience and maintenance of it by overlooking both individual and environmental prospective) for evaluation process. In the Keleher’s ‘Framework for Health Promotion Actions’, there are three levels namely downstream, midstream primary care level and upstream socio-ecological level. In this model, individual, social and environmental factors are been considered for health promotional actions (PHCA, 2010). The second model used for promotion is that of Hamilton- Bhatti Model. This was published in the year of 1996 with new research on the ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ factors of health promotions. It was addressed as a cubical structure with “who” in top. This region emphasizes on multiple levels namely the family, schools, work sites, the community all ranging from individuals to societal level. The face of cube addressed “what” emphasizes on broader range carrying network of social support, physical environment, individual and personal hygiene, healthy child development, etc. and the right side of the cube shows “ how” factor attached to health promotion strategies under Ottawa Charter model (Hershfield & Mintz, n.d.). Health promotion’s main aim is to bring long term consequences to individuals’ minds that are also known as self regulation. The two major factors of STL (Social Learning Theory) play a very supporting part in the process of self regulation under health promotion (Bunton, R & Macdonald, G. 2002). For the past 30 years, community based efforts have been used in health promotions and public health. A model has been developed for this purpose known as Community Health Educator Model which has been a participatory of health intervention model. The model emphasized on community engagement in relation to health promotions (Chiu, L. 2008). In one of the research named “The Science of Health Promotions”, on community engagement in HIV prevention, out of 51 business participants 39% participated in distributing condoms with brochures, 20% only distributed brochures and refused to participate. Within business organizations, 90% of their customers participated positively (Rovniak, L. & Et. Al., 2010). WHO endorsed 7th Global Conference in Nairobi on 26-30 October 2009 on Health Promotion. WHO adopted a policy and strategy for health promotion by aggregating numbers of different population group, risk associated within it and diseases faced in these groups. Health promotion activities are conducted through education, policies, regulations, community development and legislations (WHO, n.d.). The Case Health Promotion has now captured the whole world under its arms. It is a step taken by large institutions like WHO, various NGOs, Government, etc. to protect peoples from physical and environmental effects on health. Health is symbolized as resource to any individual because it helps in conducting every day task for them. It is very delicate resource as it can be infected by physical diseases, mental diseases, environment effects, society behavior, etc. So, the need of protection of health is the major issue because of everyday’s changing environment due to development, chemical reactions, pollution, global warming, etc. Health can be protected if every individual has the adequate knowledge about the ways of protecting it. So, protection needs education which can be done in large and global scale through health promotional activities in both smaller and bigger prospective (WHO, 2004). As it has been observed that during health promotions, the required workforce is large. This is because of large and diversified population and varied needs of this diversified population. Workforce need to be literate not in context of studies but in context of health. They need training for it. This is a large cost to any organization and approaching in such way is feasible for this big population and covering all diseases and techniques. Can a small group of people do this? Answer is they can but not individually but by forming a chain, motivating people who have gained knowledge to spread it within their environment (Hongoro & Normand, n.d.). There are various diseases, wide range of social and environmental problems, diverse in different countries, cities; different developmental status, different capita income group, variation in literacy level etc. are there. Health promotion should focus to every individual neglecting all this barriers (FAO, 1996). It is the empowerment that holds the key. Empowerment is a way with dual prospects. It facilitates both health promotion process and health promotion outcome. It is an action taken to initiate and increase workforce by making people, institutions, organizations and communities participate for the noble cause, a goal for controlled community control with individual control, improved political environment, and quality life for both individual and community and social justice for all. This helps in improving physical health with mental satisfaction leading towards improved self image. Empowerment also helps in removing barriers between communities, organizations and government by transforming powers (Yeo, 1993). In Ottawa Charter model we have seen that three methods for enhancing health are medical, behavioral and socio-environmental. Medical method deals with erasing risk related to diseases or we can say it’s a method used for identification, analysis and solutions for its elimination of diseases in any individual. Behavioral method is devoted towards improvement in hygiene of lifestyle and socio-environmental method deals with improving self perception towards health. It also includes steps taken for creation of public health policies and promotional activities (Tengland, 2009). Objectives of empowerment are to achieve equal resource distribution and healthy relationship among people and enabling people to gain their self respect through knowledge and skills. During the process of empowerment, steps followed are: first, understand the themes, then evaluate self knowledge and self image, identify problems, search policies related to specified problems and at last to develop awareness towards those policies. Developing notion of choice, following this experiencing solidarity by acquiring knowledge and using different languages, then we have to resist a return towards powerlessness with development of political skills with interaction skills. And only then the outcomes are evaluated (Terry, n.d.). During self evaluation process, individual gain their confidence by gaining skills of evaluating ideas of how to address an issue. Step towards specifying problem helps an individual or the community to learn skills of analyzing relationship (with different problems and with representative authorities). Step of developing awareness of policies helps individuals to have control over their lives by increasing knowledge and becoming part of both processes (educational and political). Development of notional choice helps in developing confidence and luck towards alternative, or rather towards choice implying that there is always a way out for any critical problem. Experiencing solidarity helps an individual meaning of team, group and its merits. It clearly depicts how a collective effort leads towards liberation and how it encourages sharing of strategies and knowledge that helps in promoting health activities. It helps in new idea generation and a common solution for all. During resisting processes, health promoters provide a protection guard to all those who are working with them to ensure them safety in changing environment. In the development of political and interaction skills, people by encouraging dialogue, share experiences and different activities to make them realize the need and its implementation (Yeo, 1993). Then, all the processes are evaluated with its success rate and the gaps lied behind. In this whole process of empowerment, an individual or community learn self respect, gain knowledge about their rights, health, its prevention and its importance. Here, they are made to think so that they can themselves come to certain solution and realize their relation with all these activities so that they can join and help. It helps them to gain their confidence by improving their overall health with zeal to improvement oneself (Tesoriero, F., 2010). Education is that sword which can make an illiterate person, who does not understand anything to understand the core to the activity. It’s a way that helps in leaving the residues behind for longer time span. It’s a way of generating chain process. Everyone in the process needs to be knowledgeable. Knowledge comes from education. So, the workforce is needed to be educated. In a research conducted on Nigerian youths regarding sexual promiscuity shows poor knowledge about the topic and also financial needs and lack of parents support. The department of physical and health education of the country recommended health education in higher learning and also educating parents on how to care and bring up children and what majors should be taken by parents during the adult stage so that sexual promiscuity can be reduced (Ebong, R. 1994). In University of Douala, with 9335 students, number of clubs are run on campus, to share the availability of information about diseases, education and communication of all possible measures towards variety of prevention of diseases e.g., Red Cross, Mutuelle de Solidarité des Etudiants du Cameroun (MUSEC), Programme de Marketing Social au Cameroun (PMSC), Cameroon National Association for Family Welfare (CAMNAFAW), etc. It also educates young men and women regarding reproductive health, HIV and other SITs (Njikam, n.d.). There are many institutes like School of Health Science and Health Performance that runs programs related to health promotions for generating and empowering workforce for spreading more awareness throughout the world. Many organization like AVERT, British HIV Association, African HIV Policy Network are indulged into helping people by educating about HIV and AIDS. National Tackling Drugs Week is designed to educate local agencies and police personals on how to tackle drugs and drug related crime. Cancer reform strategy educates people regarding cancer, its signs, precautions, policies and all other particulars that they need to know. NHS provides an online education regarding pregnancy care. “Well – being in the East”, a program started by CSIP (Care Service Improvement Partnership) conducts workshop for those peoples who have difficulties in learning, provide one – to – one support for all those people interested in changing their lifestyle, support in improving individual mental health, etc (NHS, n.d.). Private Voluntary organizations (PVOs) and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are increasing in numbers all across the globe. This shows that their presence and effectiveness in mobilizing people for adopting overall health. They work in rural and urban areas, provide efficient health services to communities, and educate all individuals regarding its need and advantages. They also have provision for emergency services and fulfill community needs (Allison & Macinko. 1993). All these show that the importance of education in health promotional activities. If we interlink education with empowerment, we can find that both are interlinked because without education empowerment activities are not possible to be conducted. Empowerment is all related to empowering individual and community to gain their self respect and their confidence so that they can realize their benefits and fight for their rights. They can realize powers of good health and measures for preventing bad health. All the steps that involve imparting knowledge are all linked to education. Without education, a message cannot be spread. Spreading to knowledge also requires knowledge about that area, society, and people and their problem. For any strategies and policies to implement, so that it can bring positive results, require knowledge of the background. Information regarding problems and knowledgeable peoples who can come out with a solution is an essence. There is no doubt that education is a two way process and a very important part in health promotion. Conclusion Health promotion is a way to make people realize the need of healthy life. Health is known as a resource for conducting everyday tasks. Health promotion is a path to educate peoples and communities regarding physical, mental and social fitness. To promote health education WHO, Government, NGOs, organizations plays a major part. WHO make policies in public health with due consideration to various communities, diseases, environment, economical status, etc. so that every individual of any level can gain from that policy. Two models have been used for conducting health promotion in broader perspective and for generating policies and regulations. The models are the Ottawa Charter, and the Hamilton-Bhatti Model. Under Ottawa Charter model, the two sub models involved are Ron Labonte’s Three Model of Health Promotion and Keleher’s Framework for Health Promotion Actions. Health promotion activities are supported by many factors. Among many factors, two are very important. They are “Empowerment” and “Education”. Empowerment deals with empowering individuals and community by gaining confidence and fate towards solution, alternatives and self. It follows the three approached of Ottawa Charter model namely medical approach, behavioral approach and socioenvironmental approach. Steps followed for doing this activity starts from powering self respect to brainstorming and attaching themselves with politics and policies whereas, education is also a part of it. Education plays a very pivotal role in any process. Without knowledge, no strategies can be made, no rules and policies can be formed, no one can run any activity and organization and also no one can fight for its right. Education helps individual to understand their needs and steps they can take for implementing it into their life. Empowerment also is backed by education. Health promotion’s prime objective is to make people understand the real meaning and essence of health and educate them about the measures they can adopt to improve their lifestyle. There is many organizations like Red Cross Society, CSIP, NGOs, PVOs, etc that are working tirelessly in this ground. References Allison, A & Macinko, J. 1993. PVOs and NGOs: Promotion of Democracy and Health. Series on Democracy and Health. [Online] Available at: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ihsg/publications/pdf/No-7-4.PDF [Accessed June 15, 2010]. Bunton, R & McDonald, G. 2002. Understanding Health Promotion. Health Promotion: Disciplines, Diversity, and Developments. [Online] Available at: http://books.google.co.in/books?id=0Ljs9tAOZRMC&pg=PA80&dq=understanding+health+promotion&hl=en&ei=ZaoVTNuHA4ewrAe4g4SkCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=understanding%20health%20promotion&f=false [Accessed June 14, 2010] Chiu, L. 2008. Engaging communities in health intervention research/practice. Garland Science. [Online] Available at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a794213371 [Accessed June 14, 2010]. Ebong, R. 1994. Sexual Promiscuity: Knowledge of Dangers in Institutions of Higher Learning. Department of Physical and Health Education. [Online] Available at: http://rsh.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/114/3/137 [Accessed June 15, 2010] FAO, 1996. FAO/UNFPA Expert Group Meeting on Food Production and Population Growth. SD Dimensions. [Online] Available at: http://www.fao.org/sd/wpdirect/wpre0019.htm [Accessed on June 15, 2010]. Gorin, S & Arnold, J. 2006. Understanding health promotion. Health promotion in practice. [Online] Available at: http://books.google.co.in/books?id=47ccYQZ1Gx4C&pg=PA36&dq=understanding+health+promotion&hl=en&ei=ZaoVTNuHA4ewrAe4g4SkCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=understanding%20health%20promotion&f=false [Accessed June 14,2010]. Hershfield, L. 1998. The Role of Health Promotion Within Integrated Health Systems. The Centre for Health Promotion. [Online] Available at: http://www.utoronto.ca/chp/download/RptsandPresents/roleofHP.pdf. [Accessed June 14, 2010]. Hongoro, C. & Normand, C., No Date. Health Workers: Building and Motivating the Workforce. Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=dcp2&part=A10283 [Accessed on June 15, 2010]. NHS. No Date. Health Topic. NHS. [Online] Available at: http://www.hpherts.nhs.uk/index.asp [Accessed June 15, 2010]. Njikam, O. No Date. Risky Sexual Behaviour, Sexually Transmitted Infections, HIV/AIDS and Health Promotion amongStudents in the University of Douala. University of Douala. [Onlined ]. Available at: http://www.bioline.org.br/pdf?ep05004 [Accessed June 15, 2010]. PHCA. 2010. Health promotion Model. Health Promotion: Integrating into Practice. Rovniak, L & Et. Al., 2010. Engaging Community Businesses in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Prevention: A Feasibility Study. The Science of Health Promotions. [Online] Available at: http://www.ajhpcontents.org.pinnacle.allenpress.com/doi/abs/10.4278/ajhp.080721-ARB-129 [Accessed June 14, 2010]. Tengland, P. Health Promotion or Disease Prevention: A Real Difference for Public Health Practice? Health Care Analysis. Springer Netherlands, 2009. Terry, P., No Date. Empowering Teachers As Leaders. National Forum. http://www.nationalforum.com/Electronic%20Journal%20Volumes/Terry,%20paul%20M.%20Empowering%20Teachers%20As%20Leaders.pdf Tesoriero, F. 2010. Empowerment. Health Promotion Strategies WHO, 2004. The Precautionary Principle: Protecting Public Health, the Environment and the Future of our Children. Europe. [Online] Available at: http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/91173/E83079.pdf [Accessed on June 15, 2010]. WHO. No Date. Health promotion. World Health Organisation. [Online] Available at: http://www.who.int/healthpromotion/en/ [Accessed on June 15, 2010]. Yeo, M., 1993. Toward an Ethic of Empowerment for Health Promotion. Oxford Journals. [Online] Available at: http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/8/3/225 [Accessed on June 15, 2010]. Read More