Health, as defined by the World Health Organization, is ‘a condition of full physical, emotional and social well being.’ A variety of different definitions have also been used over the years. These may include emotional health, psychosocial health, physiological health, and psychological health.
Health promotion is one of the key elements of health equity. It focuses on prevention, early detection, and treatment of health conditions, which in turn improve overall health and longevity. The concepts of health promotion are used in all areas of health, and they include prevention, early detection, and treatment. Prevention is considered one of the greatest social determinants of health equity because it can be easily achieved by promoting good health behaviors.
One of the primary components of health promotion is community health promotion. This involves coordinating with the various stakeholders in the community and implementing programs that address the different health disparities. Community health promotion strategies should integrate preventative measures with screening, early detection, and treatment of conditions that already exist. Community health promotion strategies should also include evaluating current practices and making necessary changes where necessary. In the planning phase, organizations involved in health promotion develop a strategy to address the identified health disparities.
The identification of the various determinants of poor well-being, such as income, ethnicity, gender, location, education, and health status, inform the development of an integrated health promotion plan. This plan addresses the major factors that affect people’s health, as well as their ability to pay for quality health care. This includes designing a system to collect data on the determinants of health and compiling it for research, monitoring, evaluation, and policy development.
The evaluation of public health strategies and projects is done based on the principle of equity in health care. Equity means considering all people equally, without consideration to their characteristics like race, ethnicity, place of birth, gender, disability, socioeconomic status, and other such characteristics. Health equity refers to treating people with similar conditions and setting equal standards for their health. Treating persons unequally because of these characteristics makes them sicker and may result in public health problems that are more expensive and difficult to solve than health problems caused by lack of appropriate treatments or lack of access to quality services.
Mental health and wellness are intertwined with physical well-being. Healthy mentally healthy physically is the ideal state for promoting good health, but achieving this state requires resources, policies, and guidelines. Public agencies should work with communities to address the differences in health and environments that promote poor mental health and to contribute towards the betterment of psychologically healthy individuals. The prevention of diseases that lead to disability and premature death also helps reduce morbidity and mortality rates. An agency’s focus on promoting healthy psychological well-being should be in parallel with its focus on promoting healthy physical well-being.