Week 8 - Introduction to Health Information Systems​

Session 2 - Health Promotion: The Ottawa Charter

  1. Session summary and reflection
  2. Learning Outcome

Session summary and reflection

Five Key Action Areas of the Ottawa Charter:

  • Build Healthy Public Policy: Involves integrating health into all policy areas, encouraging policymakers to consider health impacts in their decisions. This includes legislation, taxation, and organizational changes for equity and healthier environments.
  • Create Supportive Environments for Health: Focuses on the connection between people and their environment. Promotes healthy living and working conditions, safe environments, and the conservation of natural resources to support health.
  • Strengthen Community Action for Health: Empowers communities to take control of their health by prioritizing, planning, and implementing health strategies through community resources, information access, and social support.
  • Develop Personal Skills: Enhances individuals’ health literacy, life skills, and ability to make health-positive choices. This is achieved through education and information in schools, workplaces, and communities.
  • Reorient Health Services: Shifts the health sector’s role from only curative services to include health promotion. Encourages collaboration among individuals, communities, and health institutions to support overall well-being.

Health Promotion Emblem

  • The emblem, used since the 1986 Ottawa Conference, symbolizes the five key action areas (policy, environment, community action, skills development, health services reorientation) and three strategies (enable, mediate, advocate) for health promotion.

Moving Forward

  • The Ottawa Charter promotes a holistic, collaborative approach to health, focusing on well-being, empowerment, and environmental responsibility. Strategies should include gender equality in planning and implementation stages, ensuring that both men and women are equal partners in promoting health. 

Learning Outcome - Health Promotion: The Ottawa Charter

  • Define the concept of health promotion.
    • Health promotion is a process that empowers individuals and communities to improve their health through education, policy development, and supportive environments, ultimately enhancing well-being and reducing health risks.
  • Explain the role of health promotion in improving population health.
    • Health promotion improves population health by encouraging healthy behaviors, reducing health disparities, preventing disease, and creating environments that support health, leading to overall better quality of life and reduced healthcare costs.
  • List and describe the five pillars (action areas) of health promotion as presented in the Ottawa Charter on Health Promotion.
    • Build Healthy Public Policy
    • Create Supportive Environments
    • Strengthen Community Action
    • Develop Personal Skills
    • Reorient Health Services
  • Describe at least one example of a health promotion strategy in each of the five pillars.
    • Build Healthy Public Policy: Implementing taxes on sugary drinks to reduce consumption and prevent obesity-related diseases.
    • Create Supportive Environments: Building walking and biking paths to encourage physical activity and reduce sedentary lifestyles.
    • Strengthen Community Action: Community-based vaccination drives involving local leaders to increase vaccination rates.
    • Develop Personal Skills: School programs teaching children about healthy eating and physical activity.
    • Reorient Health Services: Training healthcare providers to offer lifestyle counseling alongside traditional medical treatments.
Session 1
Session 3