Health Promotion Information

The Constitution of the World Health Organisation (WHO) states that ‘the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social conditions’. The Constitution goes onto state that 'informed decision making and active participation on the part of the public are of up most importance in achieving such a standard of health'.

Health promotion is firmly at the centre of health development. The Ottawa Charter (1986) defines health promotion as ‘the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve their health’. This charter has been recognised as a worldwide source of guidance and inspiration for the health promotion development through its five essential strategies:

Build healthy public policy: Overall public policy should be conducive to the health of the populations it was designed to serve.
Create a supportive environment: A supportive environment which promotes the health and wellbeing by ‘making the healthier choice, the easier choice’.
Strengthen community action: Empower communities to take control and ownership over their health through participation in decision-making regarding health matters in their community. This can be achieved though education, access to information and financial support.
Develop personal skills: The development of personal skills, to enable people to maintain their health, would remain a crucial element at all life stages.
Reorient the health services: Health services would be reoriented from a reactive approach to a proactive approach to health.

The Jakarta conference in 1997 identified the need to break through traditional boundaries and create ‘partnerships for health’ between different sectors. The WHO ‘Health For All’ (HFA) in the 21st century policy document identifies action by all member states of WHO to:

Make health central to human development.
Develop sustainable health systems to meet the needs of people.

The follow up to the Jakarta Declaration suggests focusing health promotion action in three broad areas:

Promoting the development of Global Health Promotion Alliance.
Promoting health in priority settings including:
- Schools, through the Global School Health Initiative.
- City, through its Healthy City Network.
- Workplace, through its Workplace Health Promotion Initiative.

Health Promotion uses three main entry points for action:

Settings
Population
Health issues

This led to the development of the WHO network of health promotion hospitals (HPH The Minister of health launched the Irish HPH network in 1997. SVUH committed itself to the Network at this time and employed a Health Promotion Coordinator to direct this work. The Mission statement of the HPH is: The attainment of health gain for all. The Department has two representatives on the Irish HPH National Executive and Scientific Committees.

The Department of Preventive Medicine/Health Promotion with a multidisciplinary health promotion committee directs health promotion in the SVUH under the leadership of Professor Cecily Kelleher, who is head of the department and also the Head of the School of Public Health and Population Science in UCD. The hospital team is supported by UCD School of Public Health and Population Science academic department.