Health Promotion
Health Promotion Principles within Health and Social Care The purpose of the study was to evaluate and validate the application of health promotion within the workplace. The following pages will focus on health and social care workers in promoting the oral health of individuals in their care. The study will also address policies relating to health promotion and public health.
The concept of health is complex, therefore health promotion draws upon many different strategies and disciplines to improve the health of individuals and communities and the population on the whole, these may include sociology, social psychology, education and communication, economics, ethics and epidemiology, (Bunton 1992). The important factor in health promotion is the understanding of people’s lives and addressing appropriately the needs of the individual or target group.
The World Health Organisation defined health promotion as enabling people to gain control over their lives (WHO 1986). This approach helps people to identify their own concerns and gain the skills and confidence to act upon them. It is unique in being based on a ‘bottom-up’ strategy and calls for different skills from the health promoter. Instead of the expert role adopted by the other approaches, the health promoter becomes a facilitator whose role is to act as a catalyst, getting things going, and then to withdraw from the situation.
Self-empowerment is used in some cases to describe those approaches to promoting health which are based on counselling and which use non-directive, client-centred approaches aimed at increasing people’s control over their own lives, (Nutbeam 2009). For people to be empowered they need to: recognise and understand their powerlessness, feel strongly enough about the situation and want to change it, feel capable of changing the situation by having information, support and life skills.
A driving force in the world of health
The concept of health is complex, therefore health promotion draws upon many different strategies and disciplines to improve the health of individuals and communities and the population on the whole, these may include sociology, social psychology, education and communication, economics, ethics and epidemiology, (Bunton 1992). The important factor in health promotion is the understanding of people’s lives and addressing appropriately the needs of the individual or target group.
The World Health Organisation defined health promotion as enabling people to gain control over their lives (WHO 1986). This approach helps people to identify their own concerns and gain the skills and confidence to act upon them. It is unique in being based on a ‘bottom-up’ strategy and calls for different skills from the health promoter. Instead of the expert role adopted by the other approaches, the health promoter becomes a facilitator whose role is to act as a catalyst, getting things going, and then to withdraw from the situation.
Self-empowerment is used in some cases to describe those approaches to promoting health which are based on counselling and which use non-directive, client-centred approaches aimed at increasing people’s control over their own lives, (Nutbeam 2009). For people to be empowered they need to: recognise and understand their powerlessness, feel strongly enough about the situation and want to change it, feel capable of changing the situation by having information, support and life skills.
A driving force in the world of health
References: Ajzen, I. (1985). From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behaviour. In J. Kuhl & J. Beckmann (Eds.), Action control: From cognition to behaviour. Berlin, Heidelber, New York: Springer-Verlag Bunton, R Downie, RS. Fyfe C & Tannahill, A. (1990) Oxford: Oxford University Press, Essence of Care, (2010): Benchmarks for Personal Hygiene (Department of health (DH) 2010) Ewles, L. Simnett, I. (2005) Promoting Health - a practical guide. Edinburgh: Balliere Tindall Mackey, H. Nancarrow, S. (2006) Enabling Independence: A Guide for Rehabilitation Workers. Oxford. Blackwell Publishing. (Migel, K. Watchel, T (2009) Improving the oral health of older people in long term residential care: a review of the literature. International Journal of Older People Nursing 4, 2, 97-113 Nutbeam, D Tannahill. (1985) cited in Papadopoulos, I. (2006) Transcultural health and social care. London: Churchill Livingstone Elsevier Ottawa charter, (1986), WHO/HPR/HEP/95.1 World Health Organization. (2002) Active Ageing: a Policy Framework. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO WHO Europe