What is health promotion?

Online Q&A
August 2016

A: Health promotion enables people to increase control over their own health. It covers a wide range of social
and environmental interventions that are designed to benefit and protect individual people’s health and quality of
life by addressing and preventing the root causes of ill health, not just focusing on treatment and cure.
There are 3 key elements of health promotion:
1. Good governance for health
Health promotion requires policy makers across all government departments to make health a central line of
government policy. This means they must factor health implications into all the decisions they take, and
prioritize policies that prevent people from becoming ill and protect them from injuries.
These policies must be supported by regulations that match private sector incentives with public health goals.
For example, by aligning tax policies on unhealthy or harmful products such as alcohol, tobacco, and food
products which are high in salt, sugars and fat with measures to boost trade in other areas. And through
legislation that supports healthy urbanization by creating walkable cities, reducing air and water pollution,
enforcing the wearing of seat belts and helmets.
2. Health literacy
People need to acquire the knowledge, skills and information to make healthy choices, for example about the
food they eat and healthcare services that they need. They need to have opportunities to make those choices. And
they need to be assured of an environment in which people can demand further policy actions to further improve
their health.
3. Healthy cities
Cities have a key role to play in promoting good health. Strong leadership and commitment at the municipal
level is essential to healthy urban planning and to build up preventive measures in communities and primary
health care facilities. From healthy cities evolve healthy countries and, ultimately, a healthier world.
Areas of work
The Health Promotion unit cover the following areas:

School health and youth health promotion

A health promoting school is one that constantly strengthens its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning, and
working. Components of health promoting schools include formal and informal curricula in health; the creation of a
safe, healthy and friendly school environment; the provision of appropriate health services; school health policies;
and the involvement of the family and wider community in efforts to promote health.
Oral Health
Oral health is essential to general health and quality of life. It is the state of being free from mouth and facial pain,
oral and throat cancer, oral infection and sores, periodontal (gum) disease, tooth decay, tooth loss, and other diseases
and disorders that limit an individual’s capacity in biting, chewing, smiling, speaking, and psychosocial wellbeing.

Methods for financing health promotion, strengthening capacity for health promotion and NCD prevention
The International Network of Health Promotion Foundations was established in 1999 to enhance the performance of
existing Health Promotion Foundations and to assist the development of new Foundations.
School health and youth health promotion
Effective school health programmes

HIV education in a school in Africa

An effective school health programme can be one of the most cost effective investments a nation can make to
simultaneously improve education and health. WHO promotes school health programmes as a strategic means to
prevent important health risks among youth and to engage the education sector in efforts to change the educational,
social, economic and political conditions that affect risk.
Global school health initiative
WHO's Global School Health Initiative, launched in 1995, seeks to mobilise and strengthen health
promotion and education activities at the local, national, regional and global levels. The Initiative is
designed to improve the health of students, school personnel, families and other members of the
community through schools.

The goal of WHO's Global School Health Initiative is to increase the number of schools that can truly
be called "Health-Promoting Schools". Although definitions will vary, depending on need and
circumstance, a Health-Promoting School can be characterised as a school constantly strengthening
its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning and working.

The general direction of WHO's Global School Health Initiative is guided by the Ottawa Charter for
Health Promotion (1986); the;Jakarta Declaration of the Fourth International Conference on Health
 Promotion(1997); and the WHO's Expert Committee Recommendation on Comprehensive School
Health Education and Promotion (1995).

Our strategies
Research to improve school health programmes: Evaluation research and expert opinion is
analyzed and consolidated to describe the nature and effectiveness of school health programmes.

Building capacity to advocate for improved school health programmes:technical documents are
generated that consolidate research and expert opinion about the nature, scope and effectiveness of
school health programmes.Each advocacy document makes a strong case for addressing an
important health problem, identifies components of a comprehensive school health programme, and
provides guidance in integrating the issue into the components.

Strengthening national capacities: collaboration between health and education agencies is fostered
and countries are helped to develop strategies and programmes to improve health through schools.
Pilot projects implemented by the GSHI and partners include Helminth Interventions with China in
1996, HIV/STI Prevention in China in 1997, and Health-Promoting Schools/Health Insurance in
Vietnam in 1998.

Creating networks and alliances for the development of health-promoting schools: regional
Networks for the development of Health-Promoting Schools have been initiated in Europe, Western
Pacific and Latin America. A global alliance has been formed to enable teachers' representative
organizations, worlwide, to improve health through schools. The alliance includes Education
International, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Education Development Center, UNESCO,
UNAIDS and NGTZ. WHO's Global School Health Initiative invites all governmental and
nongovernmental organisations, development banks, organisations of the United Nations system,
interregional bodies, bilateral agencies, the labour movement and co-operatives, as well as the private
sector to help all schools to become Health-Promoting Schools.

Related Stories

What is a health promoting school?

A health promoting school is one that constantly strengthens its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning
and working.
A health promoting school:
 Fosters health and learning with all the measures at its disposal.
 Engages health and education officials, teachers, teachers' unions, students, parents, health providers and
community leaders in efforts to make the school a healthy place.
 Strives to provide a healthy environment, school health education, and school health services along with
school/community projects and outreach, health promotion programmes for staff, nutrition and food safety
programmes, opportunities for physical education and recreation, and programmes for counselling, social
support and mental health promotion.
 Implements policies and practices that respect an individual's well being and dignity, provide multiple
opportunities for success, and acknowledge good efforts and intentions as well as personal achievements.
 Strives to improve the health of school personnel, families and community members as well as pupils; and works
with community leaders to help them understand how the community contributes to, or undermines, health and
education.
 Health promoting schools focus on:
 Caring for oneself and others
 Making healthy decisions and taking control over life's circumstances
 Creating conditions that are conducive to health (through policies, services, physical / social conditions)
 Building capacities for peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, equity, social justice,
sustainable development.
 Preventing leading causes of death, disease and disability: helminths, tobacco use, HIV/AIDS/STDs, sedentary
lifestyle, drugs and alcohol, violence and injuries, unhealthy nutrition.
 Influencing health-related behaviours: knowledge, beliefs, skills, attitudes, values, support.

School health and youth health promotion: facts

 Worm infections are the greatest cause of disease among 5-14 year old children.
 Vitamin A deficiency is the single greatest cause of preventable childhood blindness.
 Iodine deficiency is the single most common preventable cause of mental retardation and brain damage in
children.
 Injury is the leading cause of death and disability among school-age youth.
 One out of two young people who start and continue to smoke will be killed by tobacco-related illness.
 Worldwide, 5% of all deaths of young people between the ages of 15 and 29 are attributable to alcohol use.
 In some countries, up to 60% of all new HIV infections occur among 15-24 year olds.
All of the above health problems can be prevented or significantly reduced through effective school health and
youth health programmes.

Survey topics
The key topics addressed by the survey are:

 Alcohol use
 Dietary behaviours
 Drug use
 Hygiene
 Mental health
 Physical activity
 Protective factors
 Sexual behaviours
 Tobacco use
 Violence and unintentional injury
 Global school-based student health survey (GSHS) capacity
building and training
On-going capacity building and support is provided by WHO and CDC

Capacity building includes

 help with sample design and selection
 training of Survey Coordinators and progamme planners
 provision of survey implementation handbooks and other materials;
 provision and scanning of computer-scannable answer sheets
 data editing and weighting
 provision/facilitation of funding and resources to assist countries.
About the workshops
Two workshops are provided to specially selected Survey Coordinators from each participating
country. The first workshop builds the capacity of Survey Coordinators to implement the survey in their
country following common sampling and survey administration procedures that ensure the surveys are
standardized and comparable across countries and that data are of the highest quality. The second
workshop, conducted after the field work is complete, builds the capacity of Survey Coordinators to
conduct data analysis and generate a country-specific report and fact sheet using Epi-Info software
provided to them.