The World Health Organization’s (WHO) holistic concept of health incorporated efforts to support healthy lifestyle, promote well-being and build health public policy

Advanced Perspective on Health Promotion

An Advanced Perspective on Health Promotion

An Overview of Health Promotion

Health care in the United States (US) has been historically based primarily on a medical model, which focused on treatment of disease and a narrow definition of health as the absence of disease. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) holistic concept of health incorporated efforts to support healthy lifestyle, promote well-being and build health public policy. This broader more holistic view of health was accompanied by expanded efforts in both personal and public health promotion (Clemen-Stone, McGuire, & Eigsti, 2002).

The inclusion of health care disciplines, organizations, systems, and practitioners who collaborate in the utilization of health promotion models is an essential ingredient to provide health education programs which increase awareness and knowledge, affect attitudes and motivation, and ultimately change health behavior. An interdisciplinary approach to health care, and continuing the nation’s primary prevention agenda through health education and health promotion activities, can influence individual behavior and also address the health of communities. With a growing recognition of the complex interaction between social, economic, and political factors, which influence health efforts are now focused on the context in which individual health behavior occurs (Clemen-Stone et al., 2002).