fromhealthhhealthpromotiondisciplines,diversityand.doc

From: Health H Health Promotion: Disciplines, diversity and developments. Second Edition. Ed Robin Bunton and Gordon Macdonald. Published by Routledge, 2002. pp 102-126. isdn 0-415-235669 or 0-415-23570-7 THE CONTRIBUTION OF EDUCATION TO HEALTH PROMOTION Katherine Weare Goals of this chapter This chapter will explore the contribution of education to health promotion. Clearly in order to do this we need a clear definition of what we mean by health promotion, but there is not space to debate the various models that potentially exist, which is in any case the role of other chapters in this volume. This chapter will therefore make use of the recent definitions and key concepts and principles of the World Health Organisation (WHO, 1986, 1991, 1997). The vision of health promotion put forward by the WHO is centrally concerned with certain key principles, such as empowerment, democracy, equity and autonomy, but these are values or goals rather than techniques, and do not tell us how we may achieve them. This chapter will be suggesting that education has a key part to play in the realisation of modern health promotion principles and goals. It will put forward a very wide range of educational approaches and strategies that have their uses, as we must not be bedevilled by absolutist thinking, but use whatever works best to achieve our goals. WHAT DO WE MEAN BY HEALTH PROMOTION? Empowerment is a central principle The Ottawa Charter defined health promotion as the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health,? (WHO, 1986). The Charter also suggested that health is ?a resource for every day life, not the objective of living?: The goal of health promotion activity is not therefore to produce behaviour change in a particular direction in order to impose a state of perfect health, but to help people to be as healthy as they wish to be. It follows that a key principle of health promotion activity is empowerment (Tones and Til