Trends and Achievements in Promoting Health in the Americas: Developments from 2003-2011
Abstract
[Introducción]. Since the First International Conference on Health Promotion took place in Ottawa, Canada,
in 1986 and the publication of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (WHO, 1986), health promotion has been increasingly utilized as a central public health strategy. Over the last three decades, governments and international organizations worldwide have significantly increased their investments in health promotion programs. Many countries have taken important steps to incorporate health promotion into their national
policies and mainstream it into their public health practice in order to operationalize and implement its values and principles. While some countries have achieved significant advances with these efforts, others
have encountered important challenges and obstacles (see discussions on later sections of this document). Global initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals and Primary Health Care have also recognized health promotion as a central strategy to improve health and equity [...] For many countries in the Americas,
the arguments as well as the five strategies included in the Ottawa Charter constitute the core of their public health agenda. However, this has not happened without challenges. The Ottawa Charter’s focus on “health for all” in the spirit outlined in the Alma-Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care (1978), implies a shift away
from the traditional, hegemonic biomedical paradigm that is the basis of most public health systems. The five “areas of action” defined in the Ottawa Charter for health promotion interventions1 go beyond the traditional emphasis on healthy lifestyles or changes in individual behaviors. Health promotion is seen
as a strategy for social change.
Subject
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Intersectoral Action and Health Equity in Latin America: An Analytical Approach
Pan American Health Organization (Washington, D.C, PAHO, 2015)[Background]. Intersectoral action is a recurrent theme in public health management. However, there is very little systematic documentation on how it is implemented, especially in the field of health. Nor does an explicit ... -
The Essential Environmental Public Health Functions. A framework to Implement the Agenda for the Americas on Health, Environment, and Climate Change 2021-2030
Pan American Health Organization; Communicable Diseases and Environmental Determinants of Health (CDE) (Washington, D.C., PAHO, 2022-01-25)This publication presents a framework to implement the Agenda for the Americas on Health, Environment, and Climate Change 2021–2030 (the Agenda) that is structured around essential public health functions focused on ... -
Agenda for the Americas on Health, Environment, and Climate Change 2021–2030
Pan American Health Organization; Communicable Diseases and Environmental Determinants of Health (CDE) (Washington, D.C., PAHO, 2021-09-10)This publication presents the Agenda for the Americas on Health, Environment, and Climate Change 2021–2030 (the Agenda). The Agenda is a call to action to the health sector to lead the charge to address environmental ...