Health promotion and disease prevention programs focus on keeping people healthy. Health promotion programs aim to engage and empower individuals and communities to choose healthy behaviors, and make changes that reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases and other morbidities. Defined by the World Health Organization, health promotion:
“enables people to increase control over their own health. It covers a wide range of social and environmental interventions that are designed to benefit and protect individual people’s health and quality of life by addressing and preventing the root causes of ill health, not just focusing on treatment and cure.”
Disease prevention differs from health promotion because it focuses on specific efforts aimed at reducing the development and severity of chronic diseases and other morbidities.
Wellness is related to health promotion and disease prevention. Wellness is described as the attitudes and active decisions made by an individual that contribute to positive health behaviors and outcomes.
Health promotion and disease prevention programs often address social determinants of health, which influence modifiable risk behaviors. Social determinants of health are the economic, social, cultural, and political conditions in which people are born, grow, and live that affect health status. Modifiable risk behaviors include, for example, tobacco use, poor eating habits, and lack of physical activity, which contribute to the development of chronic disease.
Typical strategies for health promotion, disease prevention, and wellness programs include:
- Communication: Raising awareness about healthy behaviors for the general public. Examples of communication strategies include public service announcements, health fairs, mass media campaigns, and newsletters.
- Education: Empowering behavior change and actions through increased knowledge. Examples of health education strategies include courses, trainings, and support groups.
- Policy, Systems, and Environment: Making changes to conditions — through improved laws, rules, and regulations (policy), functional organizational components (systems), and economic, social, or physical environment — to encourage, make available, and enable healthy choices.
Health promotion and disease prevention program models are provided in Module 2.
Resources to Learn More
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Website
Provides information, statistics, tools, resources and grant funding related to health promotion and chronic disease prevention program planning.
Organization(s): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
National Prevention Strategy: America's Plan for Better Health and Wellness
Document
Provides information on the National Prevention Strategy — a comprehensive plan with evidence-based recommendations for building healthy and safe environments, expanding access to quality care, empowering people to make healthier choices, and eliminating health disparities.
Organization(s): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Date: 6/2011
FAQs
Health promotion and disease prevention programs focus on keeping people healthy. Health promotion programs aim to engage and empower individuals and communities to choose healthy behaviors, and make changes that reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases and other morbidities.
What are the four strategies used to promote health and prevent disease? ›
These preventive stages are primordial prevention, primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention. Combined, these strategies not only aim to prevent the onset of disease through risk reduction but also downstream complications of a manifested disease.
Who are the 5 principles of health promotion? ›
It incorporates five key action areas in Health Promotion (build healthy public policy, create supportive environments for health, strengthen community action for health, develop personal skills, and re-orient health services) and three basic HP strategies (to enable, mediate, and advocate).
What is health promotion Quizlet? ›
the promotion of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. It moves beyond a focus on individual behavior towards a wide range of social and environmental interventions.
What is the best definition of health promotion? ›
Health promotion is a behavioral social science that draws from the biological, environmental, psychological, physical and medical sciences to promote health and prevent disease, disability and premature death through education-driven voluntary behavior change activities.
What are examples of health promotion and disease prevention? ›
Promoting Health for Adults
- Helping People Who Smoke Quit.
- Increasing Access to Healthy Foods and Physical Activity.
- Preventing Excessive Alcohol Use.
- Promoting Lifestyle Change and Disease Management.
- Promoting Women's Reproductive Health.
- Promoting Clinical Preventive Services.
- Promoting Community Water Fluoridation.
Health promotion's goal is to change health and well-being. Health promotion implements strategies developed in partnership with health professionals, individuals, and communities that includes all three levels of disease prevention.
What is a key strategy for disease prevention? ›
Primary prevention refers to actions aimed at avoiding the manifestation of a disease (this may include actions to improve health through changing the impact of social and economic determinants on health; the provision of information on behavioral and medical health risks, alongside consultation and measures to ...
What is an example of a disease prevention strategy? ›
Primary prevention
Examples include: legislation and enforcement to ban or control the use of hazardous products (e.g. asbestos) or to mandate safe and healthy practices (e.g. use of seatbelts and bike helmets) education about healthy and safe habits (e.g. eating well, exercising regularly, not smoking)
What are the 4 P's of health promotion? ›
Small healthcare providers must find ways to stand out from their competitors and inform consumers about how they can offer the best patient experience. To develop a marketing strategy that does the trick, remember the "4 P's": Price, Placement, Product and Promotion.
Examples of Community Health Promotion Programs
- Promoting child and family nutrition.
- Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) education and prevention.
- Promoting physical activity.
- Injury prevention campaigns.
- Breastfeeding promotions campaigns.
- Awareness programs about the dangers of smoking.
In secondary prevention, disease is detected and treated early, often before symptoms are present, thus minimizing serious consequences. Types of secondary prevention include the following: Screening programs, such as mammography to detect breast cancer and dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) to detect osteoporosis.
Which are examples of health promotion activities Quizlet? ›
Health promotion is related to individual lifestyle and involves making choices that affect one's health prospects. Examples include physical activity, nutrition, tobacco and alcohol use, and family planning.
Which actions would be considered under the role of health promotion Quizlet? ›
Participating is a routine exercise program is an example of health promotion, emphasizing the physical dimension. Informing people of what they can do to stay healthy is an action that can be taken when promoting health.
What is the meaning of prevention and promotion? ›
Prevention is essentially a medical action that deals with the individual or risk groups as well as the observance of physical health. In contrast with this, health promotion is concerned with the whole population in its daily life and not only selected individuals or groups (von Troschke 2004).
What are the three stages of health defined by who? ›
The WHO constitution states: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."
What is the difference between disease prevention and health promotion quizlet? ›
Disease prevention differs from health promotion in that disease prevention is targeted toward a specific disease or diseases. REASON: Health promotion includes all efforts that seek to move people closer to optimal well-being or higher levels of wellness.
What is the difference between disease control and disease prevention? ›
While control aims to prevent further spread of a disease in a region in which an outbreak has already occurred, prevention seeks to address potential vulnerabilities ahead of time in order to prevent an outbreak from occurring in the first place. ...
