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Health promotion is the science and art of helping people change their lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health. Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotion, social, spiritual and intellectual health. It is more than lifestyle change, it is also about changing environments so they are more supportive of making healthy decisions.

Lifestyle change can be facilitated through a combination of efforts to:

1. enhance awareness,
2. change behavior and
3. create environments that support good health practices.

Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest impact in producing lasting changes.

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion outlines the role of Health Promotion, especially the importance of increasing people's control over their own health. The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion is a 1986 document produced by the World Health Organisation. ...

Some health researchers and advocates stress the importance of community development and "facilitating a process whereby communities use their voice to define and make their health concerns known." (Lawrence Wallack, quoted in Minkler) Meredith Minkler is a prominent advocate of this approach, which is also closely tied the Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR).

See also

• World Health Organisation
• Health 21
• Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion
• Health education
• Social marketing

For other meanings of the acronym WHO, see WHO (disambiguation) WHO flag Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Health Organization (WHO) is an agency of the United Nations, acting as a coordinating authority on international public health. ... The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion is a 1986 document produced by the World Health Organisation. ... Health education is defined as the process by which individuals and groups of people learn to behave in a manner conducive to the promotion, maintenance or restoration of health. ... Social marketing is the application of commercial marketing concepts and techniques to target populations so as to achieve the goal of positive social change. ...

References

• O'Donnell, Michael, MBA, MPH. "Definition of Health Promotion: Part III: Expanding the Definition." American Journal of Health Promotion. Winter 1989, Vol. 3, No. 3. p. 5.
• Minkler, M. Ed. Community Organizing & Community Building for Health. Rutgers State University Press, 1997.

External links

• Text of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion