Ottawa Charter
The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion [10] was developed at the first International Conference on Health Promotion held in Ottawa, Canada in 1986. It still represents consensus agreement on good health promotion practice.
The Charter identifies the prerequisites for health, methods to achieve health promotion through advocacy, enabling and mediation, as well as five key action areas.
These action areas are:
- Build healthy public policy
is about putting health on the agenda of policy makers at all levels and includes legislation, economic measures, taxation and organisational change.
- Create supportive environments
refers to living and working conditions that are safe, stimulating, satisfying, enjoyable and provide a positive benefit to health.
- Strengthen community action
deals with empowering communities to exert ownership, control and action over their own endeavours and destinies.
- Develop personal skills
covers providing information, education for health and enhancing life skills.
- Reorientate health services
acknowledges that health services need to focus more on prevention than simply treatment and cure. The responsibility for health is shared amongst individuals, the community, government, institutions and other organisations.
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