Health Promotion Discussion
ANSWERS
The goal of health promotion and disease prevention programs is to keep people healthy. Health promotion programs seek to engage and empower individuals and communities to adopt healthy behaviors and make lifestyle changes that reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases and other morbidities. The World Health Organization defines health promotion as follows:
“allows people to gain more control over their health.” It encompasses a wide range of social and environmental interventions aimed at improving and protecting individual people’s health and quality of life by addressing and preventing the root causes of illness rather than focusing solely on treatment and cure.”
Disease prevention differs from health promotion in that it focuses on specific efforts to reduce the occurrence and severity of chronic diseases and other morbidities.
Wellness is linked to disease prevention and health promotion. Wellness is an individual’s attitudes and operational decisions that contribute to positive health behaviors and outcomes.
Social determinants of health, which influence modifiable risk behaviors, are frequently addressed in health promotion and disease prevention programs. The economic, social, cultural, and political conditions under which people are born, grow, and live are social determinants of health. Tobacco use, poor eating habits, and a lack of physical activity are all modifiable risk behaviors that contribute to the development of chronic disease.
Typical health promotion, disease prevention, and wellness activities include:
Raising public awareness about healthy behaviors through communication. Public service announcements, health fairs, mass media campaigns, and newsletters are all examples of communication strategies.
Education: Increasing knowledge to enable behavior change and action. Courses, training, and support groups are examples of health education strategies.
Policy, Systems, and Environment: Making systematic changes to encourage, make available, and enable healthy choices through improved laws, rules, and regulations (policy), functional organizational components (systems), and economic, social, or physical environment.
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