2.4 Promoting Health

The term “health promotion” has connotations associated with marketing, sales and advertising. Seedhouse (1997) stated that “health promotion is poorly articulated and devoid of a clear philosophy”. He described a range of health promotion activities from slick salesmanship of health to persuade cajole or otherwise influence people to alter their lifestyles, government intervention to facilitate the achievement of health and prevention of disease, to an approach and philosophy of care which effects awareness of the multiplicity of factors which affect health and which encourage everyone to value independence and individual choice.

Coulter (1999) stated that the role of the health professional needs to be refocused to include educating and sharing responsibility with the client, who is increasingly expected to function as an active participant in their health care process.  Empowering people to meet this emerging expectation requires that they be equipped with the relevant knowledge and skills.  A definition of health that includes personal control and responsibility can serve to motivate changes toward optimal well-being.

MacDonald (1999) states health promotion claims a distinct intellectual territory for itself in a number of ways. Improving health does not rely on medical targeting of disease. Health education is the transparent communication of health information. Health empowerment encourages individuals to assert their own autonomy and enables them to have the self-confidence to assert their own health care agendas.

Health is not only the absence of disease but relates to social and political factors which fall well outside the conventional reductionist approach to illness. As stated by MacDonald (2003), health promotion workers have to learn to deal with a huge array of uncertainties, social and political values, belief systems and philosophical issues which may appear to have little relevance to the health sciences.

According to Jameson (1996), health can be promoted by creating an environment where well-being is optimally expressed.  While the environment that permits expression of optimum health is unique to each individual, there are general principles that can be universally applied – clean water, safe food, a supportive network of personal relationships and effective coping skills that contribute to optimal well being.