Health Promotion Flashcards
What determines health
- The physical environment,
- The social and economic environment,
- Genetics, characteristics, and behaviours
Why shouldn’t we hold people solely responsible for their health?
“The context of people’s lives determines their health, and so blaming individuals for having poor health or crediting them for good health is inappropriate. Individuals are unlikely to be able to directly control many of the determinants of health.” (WHO)
What is health promotion?
Defining health promotion “The process of enabling people to increase control over and to improve their health. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities. Therefore, health promotion is not just the responsibility of the health sector, but goes beyond healthy lifestyles to well-being.”
What are the 7 principles of health promotion?
- Empowering - Enabling individuals and communities to assume more power over the determinants of health
- Participatory - Involving all concerned at all stages of the process
- Holistic - Fostering physical, mental, social and spiritual health
- Intersectoral - Involving the collaboration of agencies from relevant sectors
- Equitable - Guided by a concern for equity and social justice
- Sustainable - Bringing about changes that individuals and communities can maintain once funding has ended
- Multi-strategy - Uses a variety of approaches – including policy development, organisational change, community development, legislation
What are the critiques of the 7 principles of health promotion?
- Structural critiques – Material conditions that give rise to ill health marginalized – Focus on individual responsibility
- Surveillance critiques – Monitoring and regulating population
- Consumption critiques – Lifestyle choices not just seen as health ‘risks’ but also tied up with identity construction
What are the 5 actions of health promotion?
Health Promotion in action: 5 approaches 1. Medical or preventive 2. Behaviour change 3. Educational 4. Empowerment 5. Social change
What is primary prevention?
- Aim: to prevent the onset of disease or injury - by reducing exposure to risk factors
- 4 main approaches: – Immunisation (e.g. measles and TB) – Prevention of contact with environmental risk factors (e.g. asbestos) – Taking appropriate precautions re communicable disease – Reducing risk factors from health related behaviours (e.g. quitting smoking)
What is secondary prevention?
- Aim: to detect and treat a disease (or its risk factors) at an early stage (to prevent progression / potential future complications and disabilities from the disease)
- Examples – Screening for cervical cancer – Monitoring and treating blood pressure – Screening for glaucoma
What is tertiary prevention?
- Aims to minimise the effects of established disease
- Examples – To maximise the remaining capabilities and functions of an already disabled patient – Renal transplants (to prevent someone dying of renal failure) – Steroids for asthma (to prevent asthma attacks)
What are the potential issues with health promotion?
- Ethics of interfering in people’s lives
- Victim blaming for bad health that may have many factor contributing
- Fallacy of empowerment - ‘Unhealthy’ lifestyles are not due to ignorance but due to adverse circumstances and wider socio-economic determinants of health.
- Reinforcing of negative stereotypes i.e. MSM and AIDS
- Unequal distribution of responsibility for instigating health promotion
- The Prevention Paradox – Link with lay beliefs – If people don’t see themselves as a ‘candidate’ for a disease they may not take on board the health promotion messages
What is the definition of evaluation
Evaluation Definition: The rigorous & systematic collection of data to assess the effectiveness of a programme in achieving predetermined objectives.
Why should we evaluate?
- Need for evidence-based interventions - Properly conducted evaluation studies can provide necessary evidence.
- Accountability - Evidence also gives legitimacy to interventions and political support.
- Ethical obligation - The imperative to ensure there is no direct or indirect harm
- Programme management and development
What are the different types of health promotion evaluation?
- Process/Formative/illuminative evaluation - Focuses on assessing the process of programme implementation.
- Impact evaluation
- Outcome evaluation - Measures more long-term consequences.
What are the difficulties with evaluations?
- Design of the intervention
- Possible lag time to effect
- Many potential intervening or concurrent confounding factors
- High cost of evaluation research - studies are likely to be large scale and long term
