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What is health promotion?

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health promotion as "the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their own health." (1999)

Health promotion builds on people's assets, skills and strengths to achieve the best possible health. It takes place before problems arise.

 

How does health promotion work?


Five strategies are proposed by the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion:

  • Build health policy
    • Develop laws and regulations that protect and improve health.
  • Creating supportive environments
    • Create environments that make it easier to be healthy.
  • Strengthen community action
    • Enhance the strengths, assets and mutual support of community members
  • Develop personal skills
    • Help people develop the skills they need to look after their health.
  • Reorient health services
    • Plan and offer services in line with people's needs.

These strategies make it possible to:

Work upstream – before problems arise.

Act on the factors that influence people's health (known as health determinants).

 

What do health promotion teams work on?

Each Vitalité Health Network zone has a team of people responsible for promoting the health of the population

 

Priority areas for action


The priority areas for action help guide the work of all of Vitalité Health Network’s health promotion teams. These areas include:

  • Health equity
    • Promote fair and equitable access to services and resources based on the population’s needs
  • Community engagement and mobilization
    • Capitalize on the knowledge and participation of partners to identify issues and take action
  • Climate change and health
    • Understand, prevent and reduce the effects of these changes on the population’s health
  • Healthy, active living
    • Create environments where it's easy to adopt healthy habits
  • Mental health
    • Promote mental health and resilience
  • Substance abuse
    • Prevent substance use and its effects
  • Communicable diseases
    • Encourage safe behaviour

 

Health promotion priorities in each zone

Each health zone has its own health promotion priorities. For example:

Zone 1B (Moncton and surrounding area):
Zone 4 (Edmundston and Northwest region): coming soon
Zone 5 (Campbellton and Restigouche region): coming soon
Zone 6 (Chaleur and Acadian Peninsula regions): coming soon

 


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