Promoting and defining health

Health promotion

Who promotes health?

• The government
• Doctors
• Businesses
• Teachers
• The NHS
• Pressure groups
• Celebrities/popular figuresWhat are the aims of health promotiong?
• Improve peoples diets
• Reduce STI's
• Reduce obesity
• Target binge drinking
• Stop drug usage
• Information on unwanted pregnancy
• To promote quitting smoking
• Promoting immunisation
• Informing people about medical treatments
• Preventing drink driving

There are three apporoaches to health promotion:

The Behavioural/educational approach

• Explaining things to people so that they fully understand
• It suggests that if people are educated then thier behaviour will change
• Educational behavioural campaigns include leaflets, posters, TV ads and websites etc.

This approach has three focuses:

• Information focus = gives people information
• Activity focus = Suggests methods to improve
• Mecial focus = Makes people aware of medial practices and procedures to treat/prevent ill health

Some advantages of this approach:

• People can make their own decisions
• Can be targeted at specfic groups
• Pester power
• Becomes common sense
• Lots of people react to the media

Some disadvantages:

• Very young children won't undertand this approach
• People may feel like they are being told what to do so resist
• People may not care
• Billboards/posters are…