Health promotion
Health promotion is a social science focused on encouraging healthy lifestyle choices among individuals and communities to enhance overall well-being. The primary aim is to educate the public about the benefits of proper nutrition and physical activity, which can prevent chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Various organizations in the United States, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and numerous academic institutions, actively support health promotion initiatives. These organizations utilize a range of resources, from websites and brochures to community programs, to disseminate health information.
Health promoters often emphasize the importance of balanced diets and regular physical activity, advocating for behaviors that can lead to longer, healthier lives. By increasing public awareness, health promotion efforts can lead to broader societal benefits, reducing the need for costly medical interventions. Becoming a health promoter typically requires specialized education in health education, and professionals in the medical field may also engage in these activities. Overall, health promotion plays a crucial role in addressing widespread health challenges in America, striving to improve population health and mitigate the impacts of chronic diseases.
Health promotion
Health promotion is a social science used to advertise and encourage wise health choices in the general public. By providing facts on the benefits of good nutrition and physical activity in preventing various chronic diseases, health promoters hope to improve people's overall health so they live longer, fuller lives. Many organizations in the United States actively work to promote health to the American population. These include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Council on Education for Public Health, and numerous colleges and universities throughout the country.
What Is Health Promotion?
Health promotion's overall objective is to improve the health of certain communities by educating people in the many aspects of bodily well-being. The audience for such an education may be as small as a single family or as large as an entire nation. Health promotion may include websites (such as the US government’s MyPlate website), brochures, published books and journals, or interpersonal interactions.
Health promoters might first instruct their audiences to eat nutritious, balanced diets. Healthy, balanced diets consist of numerous daily servings of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. They include moderate to low amounts of fat, calories, sugar, and salt. Healthy, balanced diets help reduce the risks of developing diabetes or becoming obese.
Health promoters then may talk about the benefits of complementing nutritious diets with physical activity. Regular exercise can help people maintain a healthy weight and reduce high blood pressure, the risk of suffering heart attacks or strokes, and depression.
Health promoters hope that the public's knowledge of how to maintain a healthy lifestyle will then initiate a kind of domino effect of increasing health on progressively larger scales. Healthy living raises the quality of life for those who practice it. Over time, this can reduce early deaths and help a population live longer as a whole. Consequently, a group that is healthier overall has less need for expensive medical care, such as medications and hospitals, and governments that provide health care to their citizens also save on costs. When successful, health promotion can improve the health of large populations and save those populations from incurring significant medical expenses.
Becoming a health promoter requires a specialized degree in health education. Professionals who already work in the medical field—such as nurses, physical therapists, and social workers—also can take on some health-promotion duties based on experiences in their fields. However, because these individuals lack the focused knowledge of health promotion that certified health promoters possess, the range of health-education tasks they can take on is limited.
Health Promotion in the United States
Health promotion is prominent in the United States due to the country's numerous widespread health concerns. By 2024, six out of ten Americans had at least one chronic disease, the most common of which were heart disease and stroke, cancer, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and tooth decay. Other common American health problems include high cholesterol, high blood pressure, chronic cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol use, poor diets, and lack of physical activity.
To help educate the public in practicing the healthy lifestyles that can prevent these problems or allay their effects, more than 250 colleges and universities throughout the United States offer master's or doctorate programs in health promotion, community health education, or school health education. Once certified, health educators can take their skills to professional settings.
In elementary schools or high schools, health promoters might teach health-education classes, instruct parents and staff in proper health, and ensure quality health standards within the school community. If employed in colleges or universities, health educators take on more involved roles in diffusing health knowledge to students. They first provide students with opportunities to educate themselves thoroughly about proper health and nutrition so they can make intelligent health decisions themselves. Then health promoters can educate their peers in sound health, teach health courses, or organize community-wide initiatives to advertise healthy lifestyles to the wider public.
American health educators also can work for government-operated health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or independent, government-recognized organizations such as the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). The CDC plays an especially important role in American life. While its main purpose is to keep the United States safe from disease epidemics and develop new health sciences to prevent such diseases, it also engages in extensive health promotion to help the American people understand their health and prevent them from developing chronic illnesses.
The CDC's website contains a wealth of information related to maintaining good health. It features pages on health risks, nutritious diets, weight management, physical activity, and the great diversity of diseases that can afflict people and how to prevent and treat them. The CDC engages in widespread health promotion by keeping Americans informed of all of these issues.
The CEPH, meanwhile, accredits, or confirms, schools and other institutions that offer education in public health. To be accredited, these health programs must meet the CEPH's strict educational standards for public-health instruction. By holding schools to these operational and performance qualifications, the CEPH hopes to promote the highest caliber of public health administration to the American people. The combined efforts of the CDC, CEPH, and all other public-health professionals throughout the country ensure that health promotion remains a relevant institution in the United States.
Bibliography
"About." Council on Education for Public Health, 2024, ceph.org/about/org-info/. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
"About Chronic Diseases." CDC Chronic Disease, 4 Oct. 2024, www.cdc.gov/chronic-disease/about/index.html. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
"CDC Organization and Leadership." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 26 Jan. 2024, www.cdc.gov/about/organization/index.html. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
"Fast Facts: Health and Economic Costs of Chronic Conditions." CDC: Chronic Disease, 12 July 2024, www.cdc.gov/chronic-disease/data-research/facts-stats/index.html. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
MyPlate.gov, www.myplate.gov. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.