Health Promotion and the Ottawa Charter
Improving Public Health Through Worldwide Action
Health promotion is a field of public health endeavouring to achieve equity in health for all. The World Health Organisation has declared that health is a fundamental human right.
The aim of health promotion is to enable individuals and communities to take action to improve their health. It involves actions taken at the individual level as well as community development and strengthening activities.
At the First International Health Promotion Conference, held in Ottawa, Canada in 1986, the delegates declared the following health pre-requisites:
- peace
- shelter
- education
- food
- income
- stable ecosystem
- sustainable resources
- social justice
- equity
The following areas for action were determined and enshrined in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion.
Building Healthy Public Policy
Health promotion should work towards ensuring that governmental policy decisions are taken with the interest of public health in mind, for example advocating to lower speed limits in residential areas so that the possibility for injury causing accidents to pedestrians is lowered.
Create Supportive Environments
In order for people to achieve health, the environments in which they live and work must be able to support healthy choices. As far as possible, any development or expansion of business should be subjected to a health assessment process. This enables the development to be undertaken in a manner which will promote the health of the society.
For example, town planning departments should take into consideration spaces for people to be active, when developing new residential areas or when a business is proposing to expand its facilities, it should consider options such as healthy canteens, inclusion of gyms and provision for employees to have a healthy work life balance.
Strengthen Community Action
The Ottawa Charter states that health promotion works best when the community is fully involved in the development and implementation of health promotion strategies and programs.
Empowering communities to take a stand to improve the health of the community can lead to increased awareness of health issues, improved personal health behaviours and a sense of ownership and control of the health issues affecting the community.
To assist the empowerment of communities, health promotion professionals need to listen and respond to the community’s needs and provide opportunities for the community to learn and improve personal skills. Strengthening community action is related to the Ottawa Charter priority area of developing personal skills.
Develop Personal Skills
As well as empowering and developing communities, the Ottawa Charter detailed the importance of personal development through information and health education. Developing personal skills includes teaching people the skills they need in order to be healthy, for example: washing hands, eating choices, educating people in relation to disease risk factors and protective factors.
Reorient Health Services
A call for the health sector to take a proactive role in stopping problems before they begin is the subject of the priority area, reorient health services. The World Health Organisation called for the health section to move towards health promotion and to work collaboratively with individuals, community groups and governments in order to improve the health of all people.
The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion was the result of the First International Conference on Health Promotion and has been supported by the World Health Organisation. The five priority areas of:
- build healthy public policy;
- create supportive environments;
- strengthen community action;
- develop personal skills; and
- reorient health services
provide an overlapping blue print to improving the health of individuals and societies. The Ottawa Charter has been updated in 1997 with the presentation of the Jakarta Declaration on Leading Health Promotion into the 21st Century and in 2005 with the Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion in a Globalised World.
The Ottawa Charter is a Plan for Health Promotion
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