Short Answer Questions

Chapter 1: Health and health promotion

« Return to chapter list

1. How is health defined by the World Health Organization?

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

2. What is meant by the medical model of health?

The medical model of health is based on knowledge about the physical and biological causes of disease. It sees health as the absence of disease. It developed with the growth of the medical profession and tends to take a curative approach.

3. What is meant by a social model of health?

The social model of health focuses on the social distribution of health and illness between different groups. The social model is interested in the environmental and social causes of ill health. It tends to take a preventive approach.

4. What is meant by primary prevention?

It seeks to prevent the onset of specific diseases via risk reduction: by altering behaviours or exposure that can lead to disease through education or protection. For example, respiratory disease might be reduced through smoking cessation and through state actions to restrict smoking in public places.

5. What is the Ottawa Charter?

This is the document produced at the first World Conference on Health Promotion in 1986 at Ottawa in Canada.

6. How does the Ottawa Charter define health promotion?

"Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over and to improve their health (including the determinants of health)."

7. What actions does the Ottawa Charter state as part of promoting health?

• Developing personal skills (e.g. information)
• Strengthening community action
• Developing healthy public policy
• Creating supportive environments (settings that promote health)
• Reorienting health services towards prevention

8. How would you define the difference between 'public health' and 'health promotion'?

Both terms are used in England and often interchangeably. Health promotion is also sometimes called health improvement. Promoting health is about activities that enable a person to live well, even with a diagnosed condition and may include information and advice, counselling, and working to change policy. Public health is usually taken to mean actions to protect from disease including screening and immunization and knowledge work to identify where and how resources should be used to best meet needs.