Reducing Alcohol Misuse in Youths: Strategies from the Ottawa Charter

Running Head: Primary Health Care
Primary Health Care
Essay
System04104
9/25/2018

Primary Health Care
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Introduction
The first international conference on ‘Health Promotion’ organized by the WHO
(World Health Organisation) in Ottawa, Canada in November 1986, called ‘Ottawa Charter
for Health Promotion’ (World Health Organisation, 2018). The main objective of this charter
is “health for all” by the year 2000 and after this a better health promotion of human beings.
The charter stressed the importance of a socio-environmental approach to achieve better
health for people. As the Ottawa charter focuses on health promotion and people has become
more conscious about their health and more aware of the relationship between their lifestyle
and illness, people begin to adopt various health promotion habits. People adopt various
health promotional habits such as maintaining appropriate food nutrition, getting more
conscious about their physical fitness, controlling, and avoiding the use of alcohol, tobacco,
and other drugs (Ward & Verrinder, 2008). Nurses play a key role in health promotion in
order to promote health awareness among people and prevent illness.
Misuse of Alcohol among Youths
For many people in our country, Alcohol consumption is an enjoyable part of daily
life. However, it has been seen in the recent past in many surveys that alcohol consumption in
youths has been increasing tremendously. It has been seen that the proportion of alcohol
consumption and their quantity of alcohol drinking is at record levels. The bad habits of
alcohol consumption in youngsters result in negative physical health and several types of
mental and physical diseases. The immediate harms of excessive alcohol consumptions are
road accidents, high-risk sexual activity, injuries, murder, and other crimes. Use of Alcohol in
16-24 years old age people is increasing day by day and that causes arising of numerous
dangerous disease and injury burden on youths (Burns, 2017). There are numbers of countries
that effectively reduce the consumption of alcohol by youths by implementing strict rule and
regulations in the country. The support of community also plays an important role in
implementing and proposes such changes that reduce the alcohol consumption in youths
instead of focusing more on current alcohol prohibition laws. The Parents of youngster also
play an important role in influencing the attitude and belief of youth to avoid the alcohol
consumption. However, guardian of these youth people has indicated that they need
information, skills, and social support to guide the youngsters towards avoiding the use of
alcohol or safe use of alcohol. The five strategic action plan of the Ottawa charter provides a

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framework for nurses to support parents to promote health among people and support safe
alcohol drinking habits in youths of the country. By using five actions plan of Ottawa charter
on parents and community, nurses can successfully and effectively addressing the alcohol
misuse of youths and guide them to reduce their alcohol consumptions that cause various
dangerous disease (Linsley, Kane, & Owen, 2011).
5 Strategies of Ottawa Charter Plan to stop misuse of Alcohol in youths
The Ottawa Charter plan focuses on five-action plan to promote health promotion
among people (McMurray & Clendon, 2015). Nurses can use this five-action plan to stop
misuse of alcohol consumption in youths. These actions are as follow:
1. Build Healthy Public policy
A healthy public policy is a key solution to improving the health of people. The
government should examine its all the public policy and its impact on the health of people. If
the government or any authorised body find that a particular health policy is ineffective then
the policy should be changed or amend to ensure its effectiveness on people’s health.
However, if these strategies and policies are effective and appropriate at the individual level
then it helps very little in reducing the burden of disease at the societal level (Hutton, Cusack,
& Zannettino, 2012). Society plays an important role in reducing the alcohol-related disease
and harm. Regulation and restrictions on the sale of alcohol products and impose heavy taxes
on alcohol and focusing on lower blood alcohol limits some is the major area where both
central and local government can focus in order to reduce the alcohol-related harm (Fyffe,
2009). Nurses can directly with public and community with various government programs
through spreading awareness among people about alcohol-related disease and harms. Nurses
can play a key role in persuading youths, his/her families, and the society on behalf of their
clients that how they can avoid alcohol and can promote effective health policy.
2. Create Supportive Environments
A strong and effective health policy can reduce the misuse of alcohol by youths.
Alcohol consumption not only causes disease for youths, rather it affects the health of all
members of a society who consume alcohol. A healthy public policy related to alcohol
consumption assists in creating a supporting health environment that ensures a healthy,
enjoyable, safe, and secure life to all people in a community (Harris, Chan, Laws, Williams,
Davies, Jayasinghe, & Milat, 2013). Alcohol misuse causes a large number of road accidents