University Assignment: Ethical Issues in Health Promotion Report

This report examines ethical issues in health promotion, emphasizing persuasion and autonomy as key concerns. It defines health promotion and its impact on individuals' lifestyles and behaviors, highlighting the role of healthcare professionals, such as nurses, in influencing health-related decisions. The report addresses ethical concerns related to persuasion strategies, the potential for manipulation, and the importance of respecting individuals' rights to self-determination. It explores the tension between promoting healthy lifestyles and respecting individual choices, referencing the natural law theory and utilitarianism to support the need for ethical decision-making in health promotion practices. The report stresses the importance of balancing public health goals with individual liberties and providing appropriate information to facilitate informed decision-making.

Running Head: ETHICAL ISSUES IN HEALTH PROMOTION
Ethical Issues in Health Promotion
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Ethical Issues in Health Promotion
Health promotion is considered as a vital element of public health practice, yet
comprehension of the concept is controversial. Health promotion is described as the process of
allowing individuals to improve, and enhance control over their health (Esmaeilzadeh, Ashrafi-
rizi, Shahrzadi, & Mostafavi, 2018). It moves above an emphasis on individual behavior in the
direction of numerous environmental and social interventions. It should be noted that health
promotion has the potential to change individuals’ lifestyles, enables people to make healthy
choices and influence them to change their health-related behaviors like exercising more,
stopping smoking, practice safe sex, etc. With the rising number of health and wellness programs
on promotion in clinics, schools, hospitals, community, as well as business, it seems an
appropriate time to give sustainable solutions to ethical concerns relating to health and wellness
promotion programs. Healthcare nurses, educators, psychologists and medical personnel are
usually engaged in activities dealing with health promotion as well as lifestyle change resulting
in numerous beneficial health practices. A blatant benefit for expounding ethical issues is clearer
description of professional roles in health promotion (South Africa Journal, 2017). Since
numerous professionals are engaged in practices of health promotion, it is vital to delineate the
standards and roles for different groups and the ethical standards involved collectively.
Persuasion as an ethical issue
There are four health promotion strategies that can influence individuals to change their
behavior; behaviorist conditioning such as via punishment and rewards, communicative
persuasion like subliminal or scare information, group pressure like via meeting strategies in
which individuals are influenced to avoid certain types of behavior and direct instrumental

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control like via use of control or prohibitions. Concerns are been raised about strategies used to
promote health and they have been divided into two major groups, that is, considerations based
on efficacy (are they cost effective or not) and considerations based on autonomy (do the
strategies interfere with the free choice of individuals, that is, tries to direct lifestyles and social
values). Health promotion usually raises numerous ethical concerns entailing concerns regarding
the appropriate methods which might be applied in trying to promote health (Jillian Gardner,
2017). Serious concerns face the effectiveness as well as cost of health promotion. Health
promotion entails a range of interventions like persuasion, education, manipulation or even
coercion. Normally behavior change models have narrow lifestyle objectives, and apply
numerous methods to influence the target group, more often informing, coercing, persuading or
manipulating groups or individuals to realize these objectives.
Since health promotion entails vital potential to alter individuals’ lifestyles, it also brings
about questions concerning the values in wellness and health promotion. Some strategies of
health promotion usually do not effectively and wholly respect the individual’s right to self-
determination (autonomy) and liberty, (the right to make decisions concerning an individual’s
life and about particular issues relating that life) (Kholifah, Yumni, Minarti & Susanto, 2017).
Persuasion is a form of health promotion strategy that raises ethical questions. Persuasion is
described as the successful as well as intentional attempt to influence an individual to freely
accept the attitudes, beliefs, actions, intentions, or values, via appeal to reason, advocated by the
inducing agent. Persuasion is a problem when the goal is set by a professional with control. In
this case a nurse tries to persuade an individual to change their behavior. Persuasion becomes an
ethical concern when a problem and how it is dealt with is entirely influenced by the nurse
without giving into account what an individual wants putting pressure on him or her to comply

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with the nurse advice. When nurses are using persuasion as a strategy for promoting wellness
and health, they should take individuals needs and values into account and allow them to make
judgement on their own without exerting any kind of force or coercion (Marcus-Varwijk et al.
2019).
The natural law theory states that every individual has the autonomy to choose their
individual health lifestyle or behavior. A Person has the self-determination freedom to choose if
a healthy lifestyle is suitable for them. Individuals are permitted to come up with prudent choices
relative to themselves and not for other people. Nurses have the responsibility to offer
information appropriate for judicious decision making in line with health behaviors (Raffaele,
Matarese, Alvaro & de Marinis, 2017). Moreover, the theory of utilitarianism supports the
limitation of self-destructive lifestyles that could lead to an overall advantage to the community.
For health promotion to be fruitful an ethical choice is needed to decide basic as well as non-
basic liberties. Since an approach to describe fundamental rights is not existing, a nurse should
not be sure that limiting individuals of a pleasurable but self-destructive activity is allowed by
the resultant communal utility.

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References
Esmaeilzadeh, S., Ashrafi-rizi, H., Shahrzadi, L., & Mostafavi, F. (2018). A survey on
adolescent health information seeking behavior related to high-risk behaviors in a
selected educational district in Isfahan. PLoS ONE, (11). Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=edsgov&AN=edsgcl.561412267&site=eds-live
South Africa Journal. (2017). Ethical issues in health promotion. South African Journal of
Bioethics and Law, (1), 36. Retrieved from
https://doi.org/10.7196/SAJBL.2017.v10i1.532
Jillian G. (2017). Ethical issues in health promotion. South African Journal of Bioethics and
Law, (1), 36. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.7196/sajbl.532
Kholifah, S. N., Yumni, H., Minarti, & Susanto, T. (2017). Structural model of factors relating to
the health promotion behavior of reproductive health among Indonesian
adolescents. International Journal of Nursing Sciences, 4(4), 367–373. Retrieved from
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2017.10.001
Marcus-Varwijk, A. E., Madjdian, D. S., de Vet, E., Mensen, M. W. M., Visscher, T. L. S.,
Ranchor, A. V., … Smits, C. H. M. (2019). Experiences and views of older people on
their participation in a nurse-led health promotion intervention: “Community Health
Consultation Offices for Seniors.” PLoS ONE, (5). Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=edsgov&AN=edsgcl.585325041&site=eds-live

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Raffaele, B., Matarese, M., Alvaro, R., & de Marinis, M. G. (2017). Health-promotion theories
in nutritional interventions for community-dwelling older adults: a systematic
review. Annali Dell’Istituto Superiore Di Sanità, (2), 146. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=edsbl&AN=RN612846801&site=eds-live