Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion

Question: Discuss about the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. Answer: Introduction Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion is a term that was given to show the international agreement which was signed at the 1st international conference considering Promotion of Health. The conference had been organized by the World Health Organization commonly known as (WHO) and took place in Ottawa in Canada, November the year 1986. This conference began several actions in the international organizations, local communities and national governments (Rootman, 2011). These actions are to achieve the common aim of Health For All. The World Health Organization decided to take the leading role in acting for the promotion of health in the late 1980s when the Ottawa Charter was published. The same Ottawa Charter had five action areas which are; Building healthy public policy. Organizations of the youth through activities and programs which are delivered to the young people. These include health education as well as health information which in the long run positively affect the development of the youths personal skills for example self-efficacy, self-esteem, communication, including life skills, negotiation as well as motivation. The development of all these skills ends up having a positive effect on health. Creating environments that are supportive. Creating safe and very secure social and physical environments, the organizations of the youth are able to provide the younger people and the staff with opportunities where they can discuss as well as explore matters of health and learn how to practice healthy behaviors. For example, these environments provide the youth with healthy food options and healthy snacks are provided after attending school clubs, creating a smoke-free environment. Strengthening community action. Developing alliances and partnerships with other sectors in the community, the youth organizations are able to build capacity and therefore influence the wider community towards good health. The community can, in turn, keep supporting the health of their different target groups by, for example, working in partnership with the healthy initiatives in the town. Developing personal skills. Developing health-related policies internally helps the youth organizations to demonstrate evidence-based approaches that show the importance of having the policies in place so as to support the practice and promotion of health. Examples of policies are; sexual health policy and substance use policy. The youth organizations also raise awareness at the same time advocate for public policy development so that they can support the health-related work as well as the health of their own target groups like the national alcohol policy. Re-orienting the healthcare services towards the avoidance of illnesses and the promotion of health in general. The youth organizations advocate for the development as well as theprovision of health services, which are able to respond positively to the health necessities of young people, for example, these organizations have a part in the creation of awareness and ensuring there isenough and adequate providing of adolescent friendly health services for the young adults (Parker and Kindig, 2012). There are basic strategies that were identified in the Ottawa Charter for the general promotion of good health. These are; a.) Advocate: Health is considered a resource for both developmental and social means, therefore the dimensions which often influence these factors are changed compulsory just to promote health. b.) Enable: Equity in health is mandatory to be attained. People become aware so that they can control the factors that often influence their health, thus people are can attain the highest reachable quality of life. c.) Mediate: the health sector alone is not able to achieve health promotion. The success of health promotion depends on the alliances of all the departements known of the government both social and economic including the organizations that are private like the media and industries (Williams, 2016). Upon the publishing of the Ottawa Charter, there were principles of health promotion that were put down by the World Health Organization. These are; a.) Empowerment, this is a means of working that enables people toget more power over the choices and actions which affect their health. b.) Participative, here people participate in an active role when making decisions. c.) Holistic, this means taking into consideration of the separate factors on ones health and the interactions that these dimensions have. d.) Equitable, nurses should ensure to be thefare of outcomes for the service users. e.) Intersectoral, this is working in partnerships with any relevant organizations and agencies. f.) Sustainable, nurses and health care providers should make sure that the products of health promotion processes and activities become sustainable in a long term. g.) Multi-strategy- working on several strategy areas like programs and policies. Health literacy is a concept which brings people from both health and literacy fields together (Ewles and Simnett, 2015). This concept revolves under the notion that literacy and health are important resources for an everyday living. Health education is a combination of all learning experiences one can have that are designed to help people and communities in improving their healthby simply increasing their knowledge on health or influencing their attitudes towards health. Promotion of health, on the other hand, is a process that helps people to get more control over and to change their health positively. Health promotion moves the aim on the behavior of an individual towards a wider range of social as well as environmental initiatives. The concepts of health literacy, health education, and health promotion relate to empowerment and ultimately the role of health professionals. Health professionals need to have the three concepts together so as the goal of good health can be achieved in the long run. Looking at health literacy for instance. Health professionals should be aware that almost half of the American adults find it difficult to understand and use health information, if this is the case then promoting good health is going to be difficult for them. Therefore practices to increase the number of citizens who are health literate should be encouraged as this will definitely help health professionals in performing their work of providing health care to the citizens of America. Health education is also much related to the empowerment and roles of health professionals. Each profession requires some educational background and this is no exception to health professionals. Education when it comes to health is broad and does not just cover the health care providers but also the patients (Nutbeam, 2013). Education ranges from preventive measures, means of treatment and cure and patient-doctor and doctor-patient communication methods. The role of ahealth professional is dependent on health education to promote good health. Promotion of health as it is stated in the Ottawa Charter is also important in achieving the goal of good health. Health professionals have a major role in promoting health. They can participate in public awareness campaigns that aim in promoting good health, create advertisements that advise people on how to take care of themselves and stay healthy. Collaborating with private sectors to promote health is also a role for the health professionals. All this aims towards attaining the highest point of good health. Overall, there are two apparatus towards patient education. The fist is patient education which entails, a systematic, planned, learning, and logical process of patient education. This kind of patient education is applied when the nurse wants to educate their patients on the nature of treatment they are receiving. The second part of patient education focuses on the prevention, wellness, and health of the patients, which aims at educating the patients on how to prevent health problems such as diabetes, cancer, and gum diseases just to mention a few.This sort of consistent education and watch over of the patients is imperative. Maintaining a strategic distance from thecasual treatment of patient training will give the nurse an edge over different suppliers for one imperative reason. By beginning a discussion with the patients about their wellbeing, they will build a trusting and durable association with them. Nevertheless, this is not the main advantage to nurses practice; by setting a side theopportunityto have a one-on-one dialog, they are urging the patients to educate their family and companions concerning their work on, giving informal health promotion. In conclusion, the aim of the OTTAWA charter is to achieve the common goal of Health for All. The charter acts by building a sound and open arrangement with the public. For instance the associations of the adolescent through exercises and projects, which are conveyed to the youth. These incorporate health instruction and in addition health data, which over the long haul emphatically impact the progress of the young people's abilities, for example, self-adequacy, self-regard, correspondence, fundamental abilities, transaction and also aninspiration. The improvement of every one of these aptitudes winds up positively affecting health. By making steady, sheltered, and extremely secure social and physical conditions, the adolescent associations can give the youngsters and the staff with circumstances where they can talk about and investigate matters of wellbeing. In addition, they can figure out how to practice health-upgrading practices subsequently by supporting the training of health and settling on a more advantageous decision on their health. References Ewles L, Simnett I (2015). Promoting Health - a practical guide. BalliereTindall: Edinburgh. Kwan, B., Frankish, J., and Rootman, I. (2010). 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