Philosophical Statements: Health Promotion


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PROGRAMS AND SERVICES MANUAL
POLICY
PHILOSOPHICAL STATEMENTS: HEALTH PROMOTION


The AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) adopts a health promotion model as a basis for all its programs and services. The practice of health promotion at ACT is based upon the following:

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion developed at an international meeting of community health workers. Its definition:

Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health.1

The Ottawa Charter provides a framework to help people understand that health includes more than physical health, but also mental, spiritual and social well-being. It underlies the importance of basic necessities for people to enjoy health and well-being. These necessities include: peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable eco-system, sustainable resources, and social justice equity. Therefore, health is not only the responsibility of the health sector in society but is affected by all levels of public, private and government activity.

ACT and other groups in the community-based AIDS movement adopted the Ottawa Charter because it describes a lot of what we have tried to do since the first days of the epidemic:

- We have responded to the epidemic in a way that helps people take back control in difficult, challenging situations.

- We have recognized that AIDS is not only a health issue. For example, it is hard to help address people's emotional needs when they are anxious about food and shelter.

- We recognize that AIDS has a broad social and economic impact and the epidemic is also fuelled by social and economic forces. For example, people are often driven into poverty after being diagnosed with AIDS; for others, poverty has had a lot to do with who gets infected in the first place.

Community-based AIDS researchers and educators took health promotion as defined by the broader community health movement in the Ottawa Charter and applied it specifically to AIDS. Their work produced an understanding of health promotion that is rooted in the experiences of people living with and profoundly affected by HIV/AIDS. ACT adopted the following as a working definition for ACT programming:


- Health promotion is a personal or social resource or ability to achieve one's self-determined potential and aspirations, meet needs, and cope with changes to the environment.

- Health promotion is action by people to meet their own, self-determined positive health goals, pursued through personal, group and community development in a context of supportive environments.2

ACT demonstrates its commitment to health promotion by:

- identifying and responding effectively to the needs of people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS;

- making health promotion information as available and accessible as possible through a variety of forms;

- recognizing and responding to diverse cultures and needs of individuals and communities and adapting information to meet those needs;

- providing information and services that enable an individual to achieve optimum health and provide a safe environment for this goal to be achieved; and

- advocacy that assists individuals/communities to achieve their health goals and helps to create a supportive environment for our work. (See Advocacy, AM # 1-40, and section 8 of this manual.)


References:

1. Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 1986.

2. Taking Care of Each Other, Trussler and Marchand, AIDS Vancouver, 1993.