The importance of health promotion
Discuss about the Principles Of Health Promotion in in Ottawa Charter Case.
Health promotion refers to a process that enables individuals to increase their control over their own health. Health is a resource for daily life, not the objective of living. Health promotion is a responsibility of the health care systems. It also involves well-being and healthy lifestyles which are important in health improvement. Good health requires fundamental resources and conditions such as peace, education, shelter, food, sustainable resources, income, social equity and justice and a stable ecosystem. Health Promotion also refers to a miscellaneous approach of encouraging life-style behaviors that are related to health to both individuals and communities. Health Promotion is often aimed at allowing people develop control over the health determinants hence improving their status of health and other factors that influence health at whole. The chosen condition for this paper is diabetes (Baum & Fisher, 2014).
The Ottawa Charter was purposely endorsed to assist in development of partnerships and support organizations in creation and maintenance of actions aimed at promoting health that fully support the wellbeing of individuals and the communities. To ensure achievement of better health for every person, cooperation and collaboration amongst all private, public, government, non-governmental, local authorities, international organizations and the media is very important. The five priority action areas of health promotion advocated by the Ottawa charter include; development of personal skills, reorientation of health services, creation of supportive and conducive environments, establishment of healthy public policies and community action strengthening. The three major strategies of health promotion highlighted in Ottawa Charter are advocate, mediate and enable (Milat et al, 2012).).
The first strategy is advocacy. Nurse is often an advocate of good health for both individuals and communities. Good health is considered as a major resource for various aspects of human development. Some of these aspects include economic, social, economic, personal growth and development. These factors largely influence development of diabetes among individuals and in communities. Additionally, good health is a very essential dimension of one’s quality of life. It is the role of the nurse as an advocate of good health to ensure that all economic, political, cultural, social, environmental, biological and behavioral factors favour good health. Health promotion actions taken by nurses are aimed at making these factors favorable by advocating for health (Egger, Spark & Donovan, 2013).
The second strategy is enable. The main focus of health promotion is achievement of equity in health. It is the responsibility of the nurse to ensure that there no health inequalities among populations as far as diabetes is concerned. The actions of health promotion are meant to reduce the existing differences in current diabetes status hence ensuring equal resources and opportunities that enable all individuals to achieve their health potential in full. The nurse should secure a foundation in a supportive environment, life skills, information access, and opportunities of making right healthy decisions and choices of life (Tones, Robinson & Tilford, 2013).
The Ottawa Charter and priority action areas
The third strategy of health promotion is mediate. Nurse is a mediator between the external factors such as government, media, industry, organizations and local authorities and the well-being of communities, individuals and families. Health care personnel, social and professional groups have a great responsibility in mediating the various and varying interests in society when pursuing good health (Tones et al., 2013).
In this action, the nurse has a great role in modifying individual and community behavior to enable them realize some of the adjustments they can make in their lives to reduce the risk of diabetes development. The nurse is responsible for educating the community and individual patients on the most suitable and effective skills that are important in improving their health status (MacDonald, 2012).
Some of the skills that the nurse educate them about include; communication, decision making, managing their own health, problem-solving and assertiveness. The nurse encourages people hence promoting effective coping to their illnesses/ conditions such as diabetes. The information and skills gained should allow people to learn more about the available options in gaining control over their own health. The nurse should enlighten and encourage the people to enroll in programs that are beneficial to them. In these programs, they can learn about healthy eating habits and physical exercises which is significantly important in reducing the risk of developing type 2diabetes (MacDonald, 2012).
Reorienting health services means ensuring availability and accessibility of all health care services to every member of the community. This action focuses on effectiveness of the health services regarding promotion, prevention and cure. It is the role of the nurse to enlighten and encourage the community about free clinic check-ups for type 1 and 2 diabetes. This promotes health and prevent health inequalities among community members. The role of nurses of proving medications to patients has been made easier by the government by providing financial support to cater for the needs of the diabetic patients or clients (Milat, 2012)
This priority action focuses on the external environment located around people which is a key determinant of their approach and choices which largely contribute to health promotion. In this section, the nurse has a great role to play in the community to ensure construction of a health environment that supports, encourages and provides individuals with resources of improving their health status. The nurse is a mediator between the communities since he or she connects diabetic people with schemes such as National Diabetes Services which provide them with products related to diabetes as well as financial support. From these schemes, the community can get information on diabetes and other support services. This will greatly benefit individuals with diabetes diagnosis (Malik, Blake & Suggs, 2014).
The three major strategies of health promotion
The nurse has a role in facilitating change in patterns of life, leisure and work of the people by encouraging them to engage in activities or life styles habits which promote good health as far as diabetes is concerned. The nurse as an educator has a role enlighten people on health habits that prevent development of diabetes such as nutritional modifications. Leisure and work are key determinants of individual health (Malik, Blake & Suggs, 2014).).
This action emphasizes on making health choices through implementation of public policies that focuses on barriers of health and their removal. The policies enable the community, families and individuals make alternative and healthy choices that are essential in reducing risk of diabetes development. Some of these policies are provided in health facilities. Therefore it is the responsibility of the nurse to educate people and provide them lessons on physical activities. Consequently, this will be useful in reduction of the risk of diabetes since age, health nutritional patterns and physical activity are very key preventive measures of diabetes in communities (Gottwald & Goodman-Brown, 2012).
Promotion of health goes beyond health care into the communities. Health promotion makes health to be an important agenda of all policymakers in various levels and sectors hence giving them direction on awareness of the health consequences associated with their decisions and choices and make them accept the fact that they responsible for their own health. Health promotion policies integrates both diverse and complementary approaches which comprise of taxation, fiscal measures, legislation and organizational change (Gottwald & Goodman-Brown, 2012).
In this scenario, the nurse acts as an advocate to foster equality in social habits and health at large. Through this action, the nurse is a key contributor to ensuring healthier and safer goods and services for all community members. The nurse ensures provision of clean, healthier and enjoyable environments for all people hence preventing development of health conditions such as diabetes. The nurse as an advocate of good human health, has a responsibility of identifying some of the obstacles or hindrances towards adoption of healthy policies and implement effective strategies of eliminating the identified barriers (Kemppainen, Tossavainen & Turunen, 2013).
This action enables the community and individuals to collaborate and work together to ensure implementation of appropriate and effective strategies and priorities for achievement of better health for everyone. The nurse is responsible for enhancing encouragement and support among the community members by encouraging them to participate in accessible health services for checkup hence ensuring good health. Community empowerment on control over their destinies and endeavors is the heart of health promotion process. Community development attracts all existing material and human resources hence enhancing social support and self-assistance, and development of flexible systems that strengthen participation of the public in all health matters. To enable this, consistent and full access to information is required in the community. Therefore it is the role of the nurse to ensure information accessibility in the community (McPhail-Bell, Fredericks & Brough, 2013).
Conclusion
Health promotion enables individuals and communities gain control over their own health. The prerequisites for a good health include food, peace, shelter, education, stable ecosystem, social equity and justice and income. Ottawa Charter highlights three major strategies of health promotion. They include: enable, advocate and mediate. The five major priority actions of health promotion outlined in the Ottawa Charter include: development of personal skills, re-orientation of health services, creation of supportive environment, strengthening of community actions and building of Health Public Policies. Based on these actions and strategies, the nurse has a great role to play in management of health illnesses or conditions such as diabetes.
References
Baum, F., & Fisher, M. (2014). Why behavioural health promotion endures despite its failure to reduce health inequities. Sociology of health & illness, 36(2), 213-225.
Gottwald, M., & Goodman-Brown, J. (2012). A guide to practical health promotion. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/about/health-promotion
Kemppainen, V., Tossavainen, K., & Turunen, H. (2013). Nurses’ roles in health promotion practice: an integrative review. Health Promotion International, 28(4), 490-501. doi.org/10.1093/heapro/das034
MacDonald, T. H. (2012). Rethinking health promotion: a global approach. Routledge.
Malik, S. H., Blake, H., & Suggs, L. S. (2014). A systematic review of workplace health promotion interventions for increasing physical activity. British journal of health psychology, 19(1), 149-180. DOI: 10.1111/bjhp.12052
McPhail-Bell, K., Fredericks, B., & Brough, M. (2013). Beyond the accolades: a postcolonial critique of the foundations of the Ottawa Charter. Global health promotion, 20(2), 22-29.
Milat, A. J., King, L., Bauman, A. E., & Redman, S. (2012). The concept of scalability: increasing the scale and potential adoption of health promotion interventions into policy and practice. Health promotion international, 28(3), 285-298. doi: 10.1093/heapro/dar097
Tones, K., Robinson, Y. K., & Tilford, S. (2013). Health education: effectiveness and efficiency. Springer.
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