Health Promotion

The Ottawa Charter defines Health Promotion as ‘a process of enabling people and groups to increase control over and to improve their health and quality of life.’ Therefore, HP is not only the responsibility of the health sector but goes beyond healthy life style to well being. The concept of health promotion is driven by the concern for equity in health and calls for participation of individuals, families and communities as key actors in improving a population’s health

The purpose of health promotion is to positively influence the health behavior of individuals and communities as well as the living and working conditions that influence their health. It is a concept that is of high relevance specially to resource poor countries and uses a very holistic development approach, which addresses social, emotional, cultural and systems related aspect of determinants of health. It is made up of different health components which constitute the following: