Assignment 1 THE MEANING OF HEALTH PROMOTION

1. The term Health Promotion means, any planned combination of educational, political, environmental, regulatory, or organizational mechanisms that support actions and conditions of living conducive to the health of individuals, groups, and communities (pg.3 class text). More simply put, any effort put forth in education, social, economical, and political areas to enable people to improve health is health promotion. These efforts could include anything from getting funding to build a walking trail in a community to teaching skills to individuals or populations to improve their overall health. The overall goal of health promotion is to improve the quality of life. The goal is a planned process that will hopefully bring to pass some type of change that an individual, group, or community voluntarily chooses to make for themselves. Two key concepts from chapter 1 were the Determinants of Health and the concept of Prevention. The determinants of health are five areas that influence a populations health, they are: 1. Genetics/ biology 2. Individual behavior 3. Access to quality medical care 4. Social environment 5. Physical environment individual behavior has the largest impact on ones overall health. It is important to understand that each of these areas are interrelated and affect one another greatly. Prevention is measures taken to forestall the onset of a disease or other health problems (pg. 20). Prevention has three aspects, primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. Primary deals with trying to prevent an onset of an illness. Secondary deals with early diagnosis. Tertiary deals with treatment, retraining, and rehabilitation. As a health practitioner I can work in one of these areas to promote heath.

A few other concepts that I felt were important to understand from the chapter were

that Health promotion is an emerging profession. An emerging profession means it is not a discipline nor is it a profession, health promotion is in the middle. Health promotion is such a broad field and does not meet all of the characteristics of a profession; therefore, it is called an emerging profession. A second key concept that really stuck out to me is the direct relationship between quality of life and health status. The teaching- learning process is the key to ultimate success; health promoters influence individuals, communities, and their physical and social environment, whether it is work, home, community or policy. These two concepts set health promotion apart from all other health care fields.

2. The ecological perspective in health promotion means people are influenced by and through multiple levels. Our environment influences us, whether it is societal, community, interpersonal, or personal. On the personal level our education; skills, attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge influence our individual behavior. Tightly linked with personal behavior are interpersonal relationships. Interpersonal relationship is our social environment, those with whom we have associations with, such as family and friends. Our family and friends affect and influence our behavior for good or for bad. If I am a parent who smokes I am more likely to have children who smoke as well. On a larger and just as important scale the community influences families, friends, co-workers, and ultimately the individual behavior of a person. Communities can have resources available to educate people on heath matters. Beyond education the community can also have resources like parks or other locations that help promote people to be active, such as community centers or running and bike paths. The economics in the community influence the interpersonal and personal levels directly. Individuals personal income dictates what the person can and cannot afford as far as monetary goods but also dictates some of the education they are able to receive which both aspects can contribute to poor or improved health. People can also receive incentives to live health lifestyles from insurance companies or others by receiving perks or discounts for meeting a certain criteria. The largest or broadest scale of influence is societal. Societal encompasses the public policy. The public policy impacts the most people by passing rules and regulations that state how we should behave. For example, seat belt laws. This law is in place to keep people safe on the roads. If you do not follow the law you can be injured, killed or receive a fine.

All of the areas of the ecological perspective are linked together and to truly change behavior multiple facets have to be addressed and support each other to move forward. Just as ecological influences affect each other health promotion areas also affect each other. No one level will influence and affect just one level, they are all interconnected. The four main areas in the health promotion definition align perfectly with the four main areas of the ecological perspective. Societal- Political Community- economics Interpersonal- social Personal- education 3. I am interested in health promotion as a career because of my past experiences in foreign counties working with underserved populations. I was a Green Beret for 9 years in the United States army. I traveled to many countries and experienced what a little education would do to help people have and enjoy a better quality of life. Because of these experiences I have a desire to increase my own personal knowledge and skill set so that I can impart this knowledge to people who do not have access to it. I would love to work with underserved populations in South America.