Reflective Piece on Health Promotion - Assignment 3, 2019

This document presents a reflective piece on health promotion, addressing the core concepts and principles within the field. The student reflects on the understanding of health promotion, its comprehensive nature, and its significance in daily living. The piece aligns with the Ottawa Charter's definition and emphasizes the role of health promotion professionals in improving health and reducing inequalities. The student highlights the importance of creating supportive environments, building healthy public policies, and employing various strategies like health education and community engagement. The reflection also touches upon the need for culturally relevant approaches, analytical skills, and communal partnerships for effective health promotion, especially in the context of sustainable development. The document concludes with a sound understanding of the competencies of health promotion personnel and the required skills in their roles.

Running head: REFLECTIVE PIECE ON HEALTH PROMOTION 1
Reflective Piece on Health Promotion
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

REFLECTIVE PIECE ON HEALTH PROMOTION
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Reflection: Health Promotion
From a personal point of view, I cannot agree more with the idea that health is always
conceptualized as a means for daily living. This view furthers the understanding that health
promotion is comprehensive in nature given that it embraces varied actions bent on giving a
boost to the capabilities and skill sets of individuals. Overall, the actions are centred on
improving the environmental, economic, and social constraints that are known to impact on
health for sustainability. At the moment, I can proudly boast of my understanding of health
promotion. As a process, it goes far and beyond in enabling individuals to gain control over and
in the improvement of their health. Aside from the added perspectives of mental, social and
physical wellbeing my understanding aligns with the Ottawa Charter’s definition of the same.
Chiefly, as a health promotion professional, I am expected to have a full grasp of the
IUHPE Core Competencies and Professional Standards guidelines for positive outcomes in
health promotion. The guidelines are great for equipping health promotion professionals such as
me to be ethical and effective in my line of duty now and in the near future.
As a health promotion professional, my specialty would be on the maintenance and
improvement of health whilst reducing inequalities among populations. Precisely, positive
outcomes can be realized through creating supportive environments, building healthy public
policy, development of interpersonal skills, strengthening community action, and reorientation of
health-related services. As a professional, my responsibility would be planning, evaluation, and
implementation of projects and health promotion policies by application of varied strategies. A
number of the select strategies include but not limited to mass media, health education,
community engagement avenues, advocacy, community development, health policy, social

REFLECTIVE PIECE ON HEALTH PROMOTION
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marketing, and environmental strategies. Additionally, capacity building and workforce
empowerment are also key when it comes to health promotion.
Aside from personal expectations, the sustainability agenda calls health promotion
professionals to put culturally relevant approaches in their practice particularly due to the
cultural diversity, educational, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Secondly, the expectation is
high for us health promotion professionals to employ analytical skills for critical appraisal of
evidence tied to healthcare so as to identify effective ways to deal with issues related to health.
Thirdly, I am required to be practical in my approach in a bid to establish communal partnerships
with a common goal. Another requirement is the ability to match a given strategy to various
program objectives for effectiveness. In finality, a professional is expected to undertake or offer
support when it comes to the implementation and development of health promotion strategies
that are already in place.
In sum, I have significantly developed a sound understanding of the competence of health
promotion personnel in the quest for sustainability. Apart from the aforementioned roles,
responsibilities, and skill required competence is also attained from education and experience.
Various schools of thoughts argue that these professionals ought to exhibit awareness of the
underpinned knowledge base and the set of values linked to the approaches to be adopted.