Health Promotion

This article discusses the relevance of health promotion in addressing public health issues and the need for sustainable development in healthcare. It explores the challenges faced in implementing health promotion strategies and the importance of values and principles in guiding healthcare practices. The article also highlights the role of government policies and community involvement in promoting disease prevention and health promotion.

RUNNING HEAD: HEALTH PROMOTION
HEALTH PROMOTION
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

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INTRODUCTION
Health promotion in fact, is very relevant in today’s world, more than ever because of
the need of addressing distinct public health and individual problems. The healthcare scenario
is now positioned between the unique crossroads of ‘triple burden of diseases’ that is
constituted by unfinished agenda of eradicating communicable diseases, the newly emerging
and remitting diseases along with the spike in non-communicable diseases. The factors that
aid development and progress in modern healthcare are – globalization (Borg & Rao, 2016)
urbanization(Gassasse et al., 2017), enhanced global travel and communication along with
advanced technologies also lead to beneficent health outcomes coupled with vulnerability
risks to poor health. Urbanization, sedentary lifestyles and lack of exercise are the cause of
many diseases. High prevalence rates of tobacco smoking along with elevation in the rate of
improper dietary practices, lack of physical movements and exercises increase the risk factors
which in turn increase the rate of communicable diseases. Global climatic changes
(Springmann et al., 2016), leisurely and sedentary lifestyle(Gray, 2018), increase in the
frequency of natural disasters, security threats and financial crisis – has its own hazardous
effects and pose a huge challenge to public healthcare promotion.
World Health Organization define ‘health’ as a state of social, mental and mental
well-being and as a state of complete absence of a disease. A relishing of a highest attainable
health standard is actually considered as one of the most important fundamental rights of
humans. In In the recent decades – an increased recognition of biomedical interventions has
occurred but it is not enough to promote ‘healthcare’ as a whole. Health is vastly influenced
by external economic, sociocultural (Thoma, & Waite, 2018) and political factor. These
forces chaperone the complex circumstances within which people live, grow, work to earn
and grow old and they also shape the array of systems that form the interface between
healthcare and its clients. Highest standard of health can be only achieved - depending on the
holistic (Schmit, 2016) comprehensive approach that goes past traditional (Gaffney et al.,
2019) or conventional curative care by communities, healthcare providers and different
stakeholders. Holistic health approaches empower people and communities in becoming self-
aware and manage their own health, take up leadership for their community public health and
also promote collaborative action to start and undertake healthy health policies to create a
sustainable health structure in society. Capturing the essence of “health promotion”, people
will be able to empower themselves to manage their entire health and control the social
determinants on their own. Personal - level, organizational- level, social- level interventions
are required to facilitate the environmental and lifestyle adaptations for improving public
health in a sustainable way.
Healthcare promotion has been seen to suffer from identity crisis. Social workers,
acquaintances, friends, family nurses, doctors, allied health professionals are integral
nuances of an aspiring health promotional change. Health promotion is multi-faceted,
complex and insightful at the same time and it involves a spectrum of diverse interventions to

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finally bring about a health change. Despite this constraint, healthcare promotion has become
a professional entity globally. ‘Health promotion’ is so significant a matter that it has been
incorporated in organizational goals, book titles, journal titles, conference topics, healthcare
departments, university programs and subjective researches as well as social change
campaigns. Consistency lack with conceptual handling of ‘health promotion’ has hindered a
credible promotional strategic planning in restoring distinctive discipline in Australia’s
healthcare network (Kendrick et al., 2019). This very fragmentation has resulted in confusion
and conflicts amongst healthcare professionals, politicians, social workers, activists and the
common mass – making the situation even more difficult. The major challenges to healthcare
promotion and achievement of sustainable development goals are – 1. Health professionals
are confused and very unclear about their own roles in the system and how to carry out health
care promotion 2) Government organizations being very unsure of how to pile up and recruit
the resources to start a health promotion, 3) Even the common public is unclear about how to
react and respond to healthcare policies and healthcare promotions. 4) Social and cultural
inequalities in the population 5) Coercion 6) lack in health education, skill development and
training 7) ineffective food and nutrition policies.
In the year of 2015, with one hundred and ninety two United Nations registered states,
Australia adopted an Agenda for Sustainable Development by 2030. The Sustainable
Development Goals formed basis for a global partnership to bring about a health promotional
change. It recognized ending the poverty, other deprivations, strengthening and improvement
of education and health protocols, reduction of inequality and directing population into an
economic growth along with taking urgent actions on environmental protection. Sustainable
healthcare development in Australia - focuses on improving public health by promoting
integrative framework and equity amongst all Australian cultures and social groups. The
sustainable development is strongly related to the beginning of Millennium Development

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Goal era. The MDG’s agenda is targeted on reducing child mortality; improving maternal
mortality, combating acquired human immune deficiency syndromes and also communicable
diseases. The injury burdens, non-communicable pathologies including promotion of mental
health and the strengthening the preventive measures against alcohol and other substance
abuse, enhancing general public’s access to different medicines and to quality healthcare -
are important action areas of SDGs. These action areas are synchronous with different types
of new opportunities in healthcare promotion with the emergence of global digitization,
advancement in science and medical technology, bettered mortality rates of a nation, logical
and equitable financial frameworks in healthcare system and educational empowerment.
DISCUSSION
The six dimension of sustainable healthcare development are – 1. Institutional
accountability and individual responsibility 2.Disease prevention and health promotion 3.long
term strategic perspective and innovativeness 4.Quality 5.Institutionalization of
environmental concerns. Practitioners are often expected to comprehend and respond to a
wide range of multiple social determinants of human health. This always requires a good
planning, implemention and evaluation of the health promotion strategies which are more
intricate and very multifaceted than the past and this would involve the explicit consideration
of values and social principles as they are important to the modern healthcare changes. A
value of an idea or a concept is considered worthy, and desirable. Social principles often
explains the code, conduct or the rule for an action. An oriented action is vital to succeed
with the promotional plan. Core values, the health promotion principles are very critical to
the success of a healthcare change plan. Various sorts of modifications to central aspects of
health promotional principles are to be made with research and development. There are
certain ways of applying a beneficial health promotional and sustainable development plan
which are -1. Action is directed towards social determinants of health 2. It should be able to

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combine diverse segments of care with complementary approaches. The principles of
healthcare promotional strategy are A. Ecological principles (Daaleman & Helton, 2018) –
principles that are associated with the holism (Textor, 2017), diversity, sustainability and
balanced work development. B. Social principles of justice (O’Malley & Capper, 2015) the
principles that associated with the addressing of structural disadvantage, the discourses of
disadvantage, the empowerment, the need for identification and the human rights. C. Valuing
of local principles – principles that uses local knowledge, local culture, cultural and
environmental resources, community people skills and operative processes to improve the
healthcare framework. D. Process principles – these principles are associated with the
process, the outcome and the vision of process integrity, of consciousness raising, of
participation, of co-operation and also of consensus. It also assesses the pace of development,
the peace and also non-violence and the community’s collaboration building.
Wishing to work explicitly with the concerned values and also with the principles - is
a first step in imparting a sustainable healthcare change. The divergence of the values and the
principles that actually reflect the more of conventional healthcare promotional activities end
up providing a holistic and ecological service to the society. Individual responsibility and
institutional accountability are integral to societal servicing. The holistic model in healthcare
that includes physical, social, mental and spiritual dimensions of care is important part of
modern healthcare services. Modern healthcare promotion emphasizes on the ecological
approach in order to actualize the social health determinants (Marmot, 2018) which include
the complex interactions, the nested hierarchies (Parkhurst & Abeysinghe, 2016), the
feedback loops existing between the people and their near existent physical, social, economic,
political and cultural environments (Willis et al., 2019). Many healthcare promotion workers
find themselves aiming to fight and heal the symptomatic aspects of the disease without being
able to adhere to the social, economic and political determinants of health. Hence, the quality

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parameters of sustainable development has to checked constantly with quality indicators that
gives feedback about the quality of healthcare delivered. Public feedback forms and
questionnaires are important tools.
The different benefits of health promotion are decreased mortality and morbidity
rates, increased public health accessibility, increased awareness about self-care and
prevention of diseases, elevated socioeconomic and sociocultural progress, increased life
span and bettered quality of life. But there are certain problems to the implementation of
health promotion plans. A very central problem in health promotional ethics is about a
conceptual vagueness. It means a lot of things at the same time. Health promotional charters
often promoted ethically relevant sociological concepts like justice, enablement, health equity
and mass empowerment while the health promotion workers deeply committed themselves to
these great moral concepts and strived to transform them into visible practices. Coercion
(Hem et al., 2018) is forcible constraint which often has very variants and it is found in
healthcare as well. Coercion especially unreasonable coercion is the major concern of public
health and healthcare ethics. Long term financial and ethical strategies are critical to promote
a sustainable development against coercion. Ethics of the health promotion are vital because
the achievement of public health always targets to coercion crushing a person’s autonomy
(Delaney, 2018) and liberty (Garton, 2018) at the same time. The regulations involved with
structural interventions such as smoke-free area legislation, alcohol taxes and banning of
firearm are against coercion.
Inequalities in health are rooted in inequities in society. Closing the health gap
between socially and educationally disadvantaged people and more advantaged people
requires a policy that will improve access to health-enhancing goods and services, and create
supportive environments. Such a policy would assign high priority to underprivileged and
vulnerable groups. Furthermore, a healthy public policy recognizes the unique culture of

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indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, and immigrants. Equal access to health services,
particularly community health care, is a vital aspect of equity in health.
Public accountability for the health related drawbacks is critical to the effective
development of a public policy. Governments and other controllers of health resources are
accountable to its public and the health consequences of these policies or the lack of these
health policies in bringing out a healthcare change. Community action (McMurray, A., &
Clendon, 2015) and public involvement is pivotal to devising of the public policies that
addresses disease prevention and health promotion dimension of Sustainable development.
Taking organizational and academic education into account, the special efforts of bringing a
communication change are to be considered.
Elimination of malnutrition and hunger is a very fundamental objective of public
health policy. Nutrition and food policies (Cullerton et al., 2016) in order to integrate the
ways of increased food production and its distribution, in public and private sectors – will
help the promotion in an effective way.
Many people work and live in conditions which are very hazardous to health.
Exposure to hazardous substances (Baggio et al., 2017) make occupational health is a huge
concern. Environmental management (Rich, Singleton & Wadhwa, 2018) should be able to
protect the human health from indirect and direct harmful effects of chemical, biological
(Williams, Priest & Anderson, 2016) and physical factors. Health promotional activity should
recognize that both men and women are part of very intricate and complex ecosystem (Kilian
et al., 2019) and the healthcare reform policies (Martinez et al., 2015) must be designed in
such a manner that it benefits both the genders and every adverse healthcare condition.
Policies that promote health can be only achieved in those environments which conserve

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global resources, local and regional health strategies. Handling environmental concerns by
designing physically safe workplaces is critical to keep up with sustainable development.
CONCLUSION
Exploring values and principles are crucial to the health promotion activity. Various
sort of attempts are made to pave a cardinal health promotion path with values. Despite
existence of principles or values – there are still various drawbacks in health promotion.
Principles and values are vital in health promotional practice that reflects distortion between
of principles and values of modern healthcare and it is indeed very evident. A stark system of
principles and values authorized by the government of different states and nations should be
made mandatory to be followed by all health practitioners. There is a need for constant
planning, assessment, evaluation practice and implementation.
REFLECTION
IUHPE Health Promotion Accreditation System’s goal is about promoting the quality
assurance, mobility and competence in Health Promotion’s education, practice and to provide
training on a global basis. The healthcare system should be certainly designed in such manner
that it is flexible to all sects, creeds and races of people. Health Promotion’s practitioners and
accreditation of Health Promotion’s registration should be made applicable each other only if
they are eligible to each other. Eligibility criteria for courses and practitioners within
System’s framework should be built on agreement with IUHPE’s Professional Standards and
Core Competencies. Practitioners who are registered with the System receive 'IUHPE
Registered Health Promotion Practitioner's accredited courses and with these courses – they
must be able to function properly in real world of health promotion – facing the challenges
effectively.

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The IUHPE Health Promotion Accreditation System values and principles are based
on the values and principles of previously formed Ottawa Charter of 1986 and the successive
charters of WHO and the health promotion declarations that supported the same concepts.
Health Promotion should not to race or culture biased but culture and social based – it should
be directed towards a population as a whole and humans of all backgrounds. The
accreditation programs should sharpen the skills and values to health promotion practitioners
and they must be able to cope with drastically changing culture of global health care very
efficiently. Health is meant as a state of total social, physical, mental well-being and the
health campaigns and reform actions should strive towards a common goal of bettering
accessibility of quality health services. It should also strive to foster creation of effective
support environments and take actions towards a culturally safe and sociologically dynamic
informed practice and care.
Ethical Healthcare practice should be based on a combined value system of patients
and health care providers and it should be ideated towards the right decision making which is
cardinal to health promotion and human development. The promotion policy should
demonstrate the respect for human rights, human dignity, human confidentiality and the
worth for groups, each person and also the communities. The promotional campaigns should
be able to function with the diversity in gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, cultural
beliefs and disabilities as well. Ethical practices of the Health Promotion should be competent
enough to address the health inequities, social injustice problems by prioritizing the need for
social and healthcare equity. It should acts rightly on the economic, political, sociocultural,
behavioral, environmental and the biological determinants of wellbeing and health. Health
Promotion workers and practitioners must ensure that the Health Promotion is positive and it
would not cause any harm – rather it should better the current situation.

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There are certain skills set that needs to checked, for every health promotion
practitioner which are – 1. He should be able to recognize and then address the ethical
dilemma correctly  they should have concepts, knowledge of principles and the ethical
values associated with Health Promotion  they should have the knowledge of health equity
and social justice  they should be proactive in handling the ethical issues with the framework
 they must be able to acknowledge and also recognize the expressed beliefs, patient
preferences and promote others to take informed decisions  they should promote equality
and value the diversity  they should be consistent with legal framework, envision the
modifications and bring about a change and finally the health promoters should work to
develop and continually improve their behavior and clinical practice.

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