FORGOT YOUR DETAILS?

OTTAWA CHARTER FOR HEALTH PROMOTION

First International Conference on Health Promotion (1986)

Health is understood as a resource for life and not a purpose for life.

The first International Conference on Health Promotion, held in Ottawa on 21 November 1986, adopted this Charter, which contains the guidelines for achieving Health for All in the year 2000 and beyond.

This Conference was essentially a first response to growing expectations for a new Public Health movement worldwide.

Discussions focused on the needs of industrialised countries, but also took into account similar concerns in all other regions.

This Charter was based on progress arising from the Declaration on Primary Health Care of Alma-Ata and the World Health Organisation's Health Targets for All document as well as the recent debate on intersectoral action for health at the World Health Assembly.

Fields of Action

HEALTH PROMOTION

Health Promotion is the process of increasing the capacity of individuals and communities to control their health in order to improve it. To achieve a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, the individual or group must be able to identify and realise their aspirations, meet their needs and modify or adapt to their environment. Health is a positive concept, which emphasises social and personal resources as well as physical abilities. Health Promotion is therefore not an exclusive responsibility of the health sector, as it requires healthy lifestyles to achieve well-being.

The fundamental conditions and resources for health are: peace, shelter, education, food, economic resources, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice and equity. The improvement of health stems from ensuring these basic conditions.

Health is a resource of the utmost importance for social, economic and personal development and an important dimension of quality of life. Overall, political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, behavioural and biological factors can be favourable or harmful to health. Health promotion aims to make these factors health-promoting through health advocacy.

Health promotion focuses on the search for equity in health. Health promotion aims to reduce inequalities in people's health levels and ensure equal opportunities and resources to enable them to fully realise their health potential. To achieve this goal, it requires a strong presence in a favourable environment, access to information, lifestyles and opportunities that enable healthy choices. Populations cannot fully realise their health potential without being able to control the factors that determine it. This principle must apply equally to women and men.

The basic conditions and expectations regarding health cannot be assured by the Health Sector alone. Above all, health promotion requires coordinated action by all actors: governments, health, social and economic sectors, non-governmental and voluntary organisations, municipalities, companies, media. People from all walks of life must be involved as individuals, families and communities.

Health promotion is beyond the provision of health care. It puts health on the agenda of policy makers in all sectors and at all levels, making them aware of the health consequences of their decisions and leading them to take responsibility in this field. A health promotion policy combines several complementary approaches, including legislation, fiscal measures, taxes and organisational changes. Coordinated action leading to health, income and social policies creates greater equity. Joint action helps to ensure safer and healthier goods and services, healthier public institutions, clean and more pleasant environments. A health promotion policy requires the identification of obstacles to public policy adoption in sectors other than strictly health, and proposals to overcome them. The aim is to make healthy choices the easiest for policy makers.

Our societies are complex and interrelated. Health cannot be isolated from other interests. The indissoluble links between the population and its environment form the basis for a socio-ecological approach to health. The guiding principle worldwide, of nations, regions and communities is the need to encourage mutual care - caring for each other, communities and the natural environment. The conservation of the planet's natural resources must be ensured from a global responsibility perspective. Changing standards of living, work and leisure have had a significant impact on health. Work and leisure should be a source of health for people. The way society organises work should help to create a healthy society. Health promotion creates safe, stimulating, satisfactory and pleasant living and working conditions. It is essential to systematically assess the impact of the rapidly changing environment on health - particularly in the areas of technology, work, energy production and urbanisation. Actions ensuring positive benefits for public health should be part of this assessment. The protection of natural or man-made environments and the conservation of natural resources must be taken into account in any health promotion strategy.

Health promotion develops through concrete and effective intervention in the community, setting priorities, taking decisions, planning strategies and implementing them to achieve better health. At the heart of this process is the empowerment of communities to take control of their own efforts and destinies. Communities' development is built on their material and human resources, based on self-help and social support, on the development of flexible systems that enhance public participation and focus on solving health problems. All this requires full and continuous access to information, health learning opportunities and financial support.

Health promotion presupposes personal and social development, through improved information, health education and the strengthening of skills for a healthy life. In this way, people are better able to control their health and the environment and make choices that are conducive to health. It is essential to empower people to learn throughout their lives, preparing them for their different stages and to cope with chronic diseases and disabilities. These interventions should take place in school, at home, at work and in community organizations and should be carried out by educational, business and voluntary bodies, and within the institutions themselves.

Health is created and lived by people in all contexts of daily life: in places where one learns, works, plays and loves. Health results from the care that each person gives to himself and to others; from being able to make decisions and to take control over the circumstances of one's life; from ensuring that the society in which one lives creates the conditions for all its members to enjoy good health. Solidarity, care, holism and ecology are essential themes in developing strategies for health promotion. Therefore, those involved in this process should consider as a guiding principle that women and men must be treated as equal partners in all phases of planning, implementing and evaluating health promotion activities.

CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION

  • The Conference calls on the World Health Organisation and other international organisations to advocate for health promotion in all appropriate fora and to support countries in developing and implementing health promotion strategies and programmes. The participants in the Conference strongly believe that if people from all backgrounds - non-governmental and voluntary organisations, governments, the World Health Organisation and all other relevant fora - were to come together and present strategies for health promotion in accordance with the moral and social values which shape this Charter, Health for All in the Year 2000 would become a reality.

ENVIAR MENSAGEM

Favor preencher o formulário abaixo!