Ottawa Charter Health Promotion

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Health Promotion Task 1 (AC1.1) The Ottawa Charter was a document produced in Ottawa, Canada. The charter explains and simplifies the resources that are required for health promotion and good health (Better Health Channel. 1986). The charter furthers people's basic understanding and knowledge on what good health is; for example The World Health Organisation once reflected upon ‘good health’ as it being the absence of disease, however they have now changed this to be more appropriate to society today (World Health Organisation. 2015). People generally think of good health as consisting of psychological and physical well being and the conditions that go with them although the Charter states the ‘fundamental conditions and resources needed for…show more content…
1986). Strategies however are based on theoretical frameworks to illustrate how health promotion is carried out, such as cultural and structural. Cultural theories are based on choices made by an individual and how these are influenced by the surrounding culture - for example they may include drug use, dietary habits or smoking. Cultural theories believe that if the area in which a person lives has promoted good health then the individual will reflect that but if the health promotion is sparse then the health of the community will reflect that (West, P. 1998). Another theory that can be used to explain health promotion is the structural theory, which is based on politics and the economy instead of an individual. They explain the differences in health in terms of income, access to facilities and the class of society people live in. For example the level of smoking which causes bad health is more predominant in families with lower incomes (West, P.…show more content…
Gender is an important within health promotion as gender is formulated by the chromosomes you inherit, furthermore certain genetic makeup can be hereditary and impact on the health status of a particular person or gender (Eckermann, E. et al. 2006). Certain illnesses only occur in a set gender, for example only males can suffer from prostate cancer (National Center for Biotechnology Information. 1998) and only females can suffer from gynecological illnesses (NIH. 2012). The genetics that a person inherits can further make it more or less likely for the illness to be prevalent. When formulating health promotion policies at a specific gender it needs to be appropriate to them. Males are less commonly known to visit GP (general practitioners) surgeries so advertising within this facility won’t be applicable to males as they probably won’t see it. To promote good health in males policies and publicities need to be readily available and advertised in areas they frequently vacate, such as: sporting events, public toilets, within workplaces where the workforce is predominantly male as well as in the media and on billboards. If the advertisement is done throughout areas males frequently use the message behind it is more likely to be successful and visible to the target audience (Eckermann, E. et al.

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