Health Promotion Program Assesment Report

Running head: HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
ACADEMIC ESSAY ON HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
Introduction:
Health promotion programs are community-based programs that are focused on
improving the health and well-being of a separate individual as well as an entire community.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) developed a guideline at their first international
conference in 1986 for developing a health promotion program. The conference was held in
Ottawa, and thus the guideline is known as Ottawa Charter (World Health Organization.,
2020). According to the Ottawa Charter, the key to achieving a sufficient level of physical,
social and mental well-being is to increase the control over the life-style and the health
promotion programs are for aiding the individuals to achieve that control. The paper aims to
discuss a selected healthcare promotion program in the context of the Ottawa Charter. There
will be a detailed discussion on the activities of health promotion program as described by the
Ottawa Charter and a critique of the chosen program in the context of those activities.
Discussion:
Building Healthy Public Policy:
A public health policy does not focus on health promotion activities only. It addresses
the health problems in a community in the context of economic structure, legislation, taxation
and organisational structure. The policy development aims to connect the matter of health and
well-being of a community with various other social sectors, which can also be labelled as
non-health sectors. A public health policy forces the community people or public to be aware
of the health problems and their consequences and thus in turn to take the responsibility of
their own health and well-being. Such policy also teaches the public to make a healthier
choice rather than an easier choice (Fry & Zask, 2017). Thus building a healthy public policy
is one of the most important activities of a health promotion program.

2HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
The selected health promotion program or Moorabool Municipal Public Health and
Wellbeing Plan (2017-2021) had developed a policy that was based on other international,
federal, state and local policy guidelines (Moorabool.vic.gov.au., 2020). The health
promotion plan can be considered appropriate because the policy addressed all the aspects as
described by the Ottawa Charter. The policy is focused on the Moorabool community, and it
is focused on following all the guidelines described by the other policies at place. The
referred policies are well-known policies, which considered the economic structure,
legislation, taxation and organisational structure. The plan does not specifically address a
specific health issue such as gestational diabetes. However, the plan aims for developing
different policies addressed at different health issues.
Creating Supportive Environments:
The second activity for the health promotion programs is the creation of a supportive
environment for encouraging the community people for maintaining their health and well-
being as described by the Ottawa charter (World Health Organization., 2020). The
requirement for this approach is to recruit a socioecological approach. The creation of a link
between the people and their surrounding environment is a socioecological approach for
acquiring excellent health (Golden et al., 2015). There is a significant impact on health
resulting from the constantly changing patterns of time, work and life. The aim of the health
promotion programs should be converting the living conditions along with leisure and work
conditions as the source of health in people, instead of leaving them to be the reasons for
impaired health in the community people. The conversion of those aspects into enjoyable,
safe, satisfying and stimulating factors of health is the aim of this activity (Green, Jackisch &
Zamaro, 2015).
Moorabool Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan (2017-2021) recognises the
importance of this activity. Thus the plan focuses on including the housing, land-use, urban

3HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
planning, sport and recreation and various other kinds of community development programs
in their health promotion plan for the creation of an appropriate and supportive environment
for encouraging excellent health and well-being of the community people
(Moorabool.vic.gov.au., 2020). The plan aims for promoting the practice of appropriate
exercise and healthy eating among all the people of the community including the pregnant
women, which is most likely to reduce the risk of gestational diabetes in them.
Strengthening Community Actions:
This third priority action of a health promotion program is aimed at empowering the
community itself. The Ottawa Charter suggests that the overall success of all the other
activities of a health promotion program depends on the ability of a community to accept the
ownership and control of their own endeavours along with their destinies (World Health
Organization., 2020). The principal approach of this activity is promoting community
development by increasing the public tendency to actively participate in the community-
based programs, including the health promotion programs (Sancassiani et al., 2015). The
community development programs enhance the social support along with the tendency of
self-help, which in turn directs the entire community towards the improvement of the overall
community health and well-being. However, this action requires continuous access to a few
resources, such as funding and information (Fertman & Allensworth, 2016).
Moorabool Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan (2017-2021) includes
various community development programs in their plan. The plan developers also included
community engagement as an important aspect of their health promotion plan. There was an
engagement of local government with this program (Moorabool.vic.gov.au., 2020). Thus it
can be decided that the council had appropriate access to the fund and other necessary
resources. An appropriate supply of the resources will ensure the prevention of gestational
diabetes among the pregnant women.

4HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
Developing Personal Skills:
According to the Ottawa Charter, a health promotion program should focus on the
individuals as well as the community people (World Health Organization., 2020). It is
important for every individual to be able to take responsibility for their own health and well-
being. Thus the health promotion programs should help them to acquire appropriate and
necessary information regarding their health requirements and the enhancement of their life-
styles. Every individual should be aware of the necessity of exercise for achieving excellent
health and also the coping strategies in case of a chronic illness condition. The health
promotion programs simply enable every individual of a community to acquire control over
their own health and environment (Labonte & Laverack, 2001). This particular action area
requires to involve various platforms such as commercial, educational, professional and
various other institutional platforms to increase awareness among the individuals in a
community.
Moorabool Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan (2017-2021) focuses on
developing personal skills as one of the many objectives of their strategies was healthier
individuals. There were various action plans involving various platforms for achieving the
goal of developing personal skills among the community people focusing on the individuals,
such as the practice of exercising, healthy eating and cessation of smoking and drinking, for
lowering the risks of diabetes among the pregnant women (Moorabool.vic.gov.au., 2020).
Reorienting Health Services:
This activity aims to introduce continuous improvements to the existing health
promotion program to achieve an improved outcome in the target population. Successful
delivery of the health services involves multiple individuals, such as healthcare professionals,
government and also various community groups. All of those individuals must work together
and continuously monitor the success of the health promotion plans in the improvement of

5HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
community health (Crisp, Swerissen & Duckett, 2000). They must also continuously orient
the direction of the plan in order to introduce a newer and improved strategy for achieving the
ultimate goal. The application of appropriate education and training can ensure the success of
this activity.
Moorabool Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan (2017-2021) recognises the
importance of literature review and continuous evaluation of the strategies and the action
plans associated with them (Moorabool.vic.gov.au., 2020). Every strategy and action plans
described in this health promotion plan had evaluation strategies for examining their success
in improving community health. As for example, the practice of healthy eating can be
evaluated by reduced consumption of sugary drinks, which is an effective strategy for
preventing diabetes. Thus it can be decided that the developers of this plan are prepared to
introduce any reorientation that might be necessary for ensuring the success of the plan.
Moving into the Future:
This activity mainly ensures that there will be a continuous improvement in the
community health in future. The idea of health promotion is for clarifying the definition of
health. The health can be described as an idea that can be controlled by people for living a
satisfying life and is created by caring for others. Health promotion has a few important
aspects, such as caring, ecology and holism (World Health Organization., 2020). The moving
into future activity suggests that the health promotion program must consider all these aspects
for planning, implementing strategies and also for evaluating the activities. The developers of
a health promotion program must work together and sincerely for achieving the success of a
health promotion plan ((Fertman & Allensworth, 2016).
The developers of Moorabool Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan (2017-
2021) have maintained step by step process for developing the plan. They have considered all

6HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
the socioecological factors that might be responsible for impaired health and developed plan
based on their caring attitude to achieve a holistic outcome. The plan is focused on bringing
every stakeholder together for the achievement of a common goal of improved community
health. The plan included the healthcare workers as the most important stakeholder for this
health promotion program. The program expects all the healthcare workers including the
nurses to display appropriate leadership skills and ability to teamwork for the successful
implementation of this plan (Moorabool.vic.gov.au., 2020).
Conclusion:
Hence it can be concluded that a health promotion program must focus on the overall
community health as well as individual health. The Ottawa Charter is a guideline described
by the WHO for the creation of a successful health promotion program, which describes six
principal activities that must be included in the program. The actions are building a healthy
public policy, creation of a supportive environment, strengthening community action,
developing personal skills in the community people, reorientation of health services and
finally moving onto the future. The selected health promotion program is Moorabool
Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan (2017-2021). The health promotion plan
successfully includes all the activities advised by WHO for addressing various health issues
including gestational diabetes. Thus improved community health in the Moorabool
community can be expected after a successful implementation of the plan.

7HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
References:
Crisp, B. R., Swerissen, H., & Duckett, S. J. (2000). Four approaches to capacity building in
health: consequences for measurement and accountability. Health promotion
international, 15(2), 99-107. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/15.2.99
Fertman, C. I., & Allensworth, D. D. (2016). Health promotion programs: from theory to
practice. John Wiley & Sons. https://books.google.co.in/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=gsE0DQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR18&dq=health+promotion+progra
ms&ots=ziqzRwn9HL&sig=neRNOKcefPBJfPTCKg-
BRL8t98w#v=onepage&q=health%20promotion%20programs&f=false
Fry, D., & Zask, A. (2017). Applying the Ottawa Charter to inform health promotion
programme design. Health promotion international, 32(5), 901-912.
https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daw022
Golden, S. D., McLeroy, K. R., Green, L. W., Earp, J. A. L., & Lieberman, L. D. (2015).
Upending the social ecological model to guide health promotion efforts toward policy
and environmental change.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1090198115575098
Green, G., Jackisch, J., & Zamaro, G. (2015). Healthy cities as catalysts for caring and
supportive environments. Health promotion international, 30(suppl_1), i99-i107.
https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/dav037
Labonte, R., & Laverack, G. (2001). Capacity building in health promotion, Part 1: For
whom? And for what purpose?. Critical public health, 11(2), 111-127.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09581590110039838

8HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM
Labonte, R., & Laverack, G. (2001). Capacity building in health promotion, Part 2: Whose
use? And with what measurement?. Critical Public Health, 11(2), 129-138.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09581590110039847
Moorabool.vic.gov.au. (2020). MOORABOOL MUNICIPAL PUBLIC HEALTH AND
WELLBEING PLAN 2017-2021. Moorabool.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 15 April 2020,
from https://www.moorabool.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/Health%20and
%20Wellbeing%20Plan.pdf.
Sancassiani, F., Pintus, E., Holte, A., Paulus, P., Moro, M. F., Cossu, G., ... & Lindert, J.
(2015). Enhancing the emotional and social skills of the youth to promote their
wellbeing and positive development: a systematic review of universal school-based
randomized controlled trials. Clinical practice and epidemiology in mental health:
CP & EMH, 11(Suppl 1 M2), 21.
https://dx.doi.org/10.2174%2F1745017901511010021
World Health Organization. (2020). The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. World Health
Organization. Retrieved 15 April 2020, from
https://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/previous/ottawa/en/index1.html.