Health
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines the word HEALTH as "the process that allows people to exercise more control over their health and improve it".
This definition implies:
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the creation of environments that make it possible to offer adequate support to people for the pursuit of health in the living and working environments, through conditions of greater safety and gratification;
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the strengthening of the action of the communities that must be adequately supported in order to be able to make autonomous choices regarding the problems relating to the health of the citizens who belong to them;
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the reorientation of health services in the logic of making them more suitable for interacting with other sectors, in such a way as to carry out a common action for the health of the reference community; in this sense, health promotion includes but is not limited to health prevention activities.
Purposes
Health promotion aims above all to achieve equality in health conditions. His intervention aims to reduce the evident differentiations in the current social stratification of health, offering all equal opportunities and resources to achieve the maximum possible health potential. This includes: a firm rootedness in a welcoming environment, access to information, the skills necessary for life, the possibility of making adequate choices regarding one's health.
It is not possible to achieve maximum health potential if you are unable to control the determinants of health.
Health is an essential good for social, economic and personal development, and is a fundamental aspect of the quality of life. Political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, behavioral and biological factors can favor it as well as harm it.
Individuals and groups can also become active subjects in the pursuit of a state of good health when they are able to identify and fulfill their aspirations, meet their needs, change the environment or adapt to them.
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The promotion of health is not the exclusive responsibility of the health sector, having to involve also the sectors that affect health itself with an approach defined as "intersectoral"; that is, which provides for the intervention, collaboration and coordination of sectors other than health (education, culture, transport, agriculture, tourism, etc.) to implement initiatives capable of improving the health of the population. It brings the problem to the attention of decision makers in all sectors, at all levels, inviting them to be fully aware of the health consequences of each of their decisions, and to a precise assumption of responsibility in this regard.