Health chap 5

• Health promotion


  The process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health
• How we do health promotion

  1. Set up health promotion programs

  2. Provide skills

  3. Provide knowledge
• Social model of health

  • Considers physical factors (where you live, where you work, own homes, amount of pollution)
  • Considers sociocultural factors (access to healthcare, income, education levels)
  • Considers political factors (funding for healthcare, laws and rules)
• New health


  • Focuses on the community
  • Considers broad range of factors that influence health
  • Changing causes of morbidity and mortality, inequalities in health status
• Social model of health


  An approach that directs its efforts to addressing the physical, sociocultural, and political environments that have an impact on individuals and population groups
• Principles of social model of health


  • Addresses broader determinants of health
  • Acts to reduce social inequities
  • Empowers individuals and communities
  • Acts to enable access to healthcare
  • Involves intersectoral collaboration
• Addresses broader determinants of health


  is about addressing all the determinants of health, including biological, sociocultural and environmental factors rather than focusing on the behaviours of individuals

  Including gender, culture, ses, ethnicity, geographical location, and physical environment
• Acts to reduce social inequities

  is about reducing the inequities that exist in relation to health status

  Such as improving education, employment, housing, and opportunities
• Empowers individuals and communities


  • Focuses on educating people and giving them the knowledge and skills to make healthy behaviors
• Acts to enable access to healthcare


  is about improving access to healthcare, services and information based on need

  Including addressing language / cultural barriers, economic factors, geographical barrier, and educational levels
• Involves intersectoral collaboration


  is about embracing the need for integrated action to address health determinants between government departments, welfare, and the health sector

  Incorporates government departments such as education, employment, roads as well as private sector
• Social model of health advantagesPromotes overall health and wellbeing

  • Assists in preventing disease
  • Most cost effective
• Social model of health disadvantages

  • Not all diseases / conditions can be prevented
  • People can choose to ignore health messages
• Old public health


  Worked to primarily prevent infectious diseases and injuries by focusing on and changing the physical environment - Government actions that focused on changing the physical environment to
• Government actions in old public health

  1. Providing safe water

  2. Providing sanitation and sewage disposal

  3. Improving nutrition

  4. Improving housing conditions

  5. Improving work conditions
• Biomedical model - focuses on the physical or biological aspects of disease and illness. It is a medical model

  practised by doctors and health professionals and is associated with the diagnosis, treatment and cure of disease.
• Biomedical model


  • Focuses on the biological aspects of disease (diagnosis and treatment)
  • Focuses on individual people
  • Treats the condition, not the cause
• advantages of biomedical

  • increases life expectancy
  • Improves quality of life
• disadvantages of biomedical

  • it is expensive
  • it relies on medical professionals
• examples of social model

  • health promotion campaigns
  • preventative education in school
  • ads and packaging
• examples of biomedical

  • x rays
  • gps+
  • medical screenings
  • surgery
  • inhalers
  • specialists
  • medication
• three strategies for health promotion

  advocate, enable, mediate
• advocate

  Advocacy for health and wellbeing refers 

  to actions designed to gain support from governments and societies that are necessary to improve health and wellbeing for everyone. 

  media campaigns, public speaking, conducting and publishing research. 
• enable

  refers to ensuring equal opportunities and resources are available to enable all people to achieve optimal health and wellbeing.

  access to education, employment, adequate housing, nutritious food, healthcare. 
• mediate

  Mediating relates to helping groups resolve conflict and produce outcomes that promote health and wellbeing. 

  reducing speed limits, government, private companies, health services. 
• action areas for Ottawa charter

  • build healthy public policy+
  • create supportive environments+
  • strengthen community action+
  • develop personal skills+
  • reorient health services
• Build healthy public policy+

  This action area relates directly to the decisions made by government and organisations regarding laws and policies that make it more difficult for people to undertake unhealthy behaviours and seek to make healthier choices the easier choices
• strengthen community action


  This action area focuses on building links between individuals and the community, and centres around the community working together to achieve a common goal.
• create supportive environments+

  This action area refers to promoting a healthy physical and socio cultural environment for all members of the community by ensuring a safe, enjoyable and satisfying environment that promotes health and wellbeing.
• develop personal skills

  Education that refers to gaining health-related knowledge and skills that allow people to make informed decisions that may indirectly affect health and wellbeing
• reorient health services

  This action area refers to changing the health system so that it promotes health and wellbeing rather than just focusing on diagnosing and treating illness, as is the case with the biomedical model.
• How to evaluate initiatives in relation to their capacity to improve Indigenous health and wellbeing

  have actual improvements in health and wellbeing been made

  is there feedback from the participants on the program itself

  can you identity the action areas from the Ottawa charter

  assess whether the initiative is culturally appropriate

  address significant health issue for Aboriginal people and why its important