A Review of the 1986 WHO Conclave or the Ottawa Initiative

A Review of the 1986 WHO conclave
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The 1986 WHO conclave, commonly referred to as the Ottawa Initiative, was a pivotal moment in international health policy that set the stage for a worldwide discussion on the promotion of health and disease prevention. This initiative was held in Ottawa (in Canada), and the primary focus of the conclave was to address the growing issue of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the world and their potential to cause great harm to public health (Holtz, 2022). The initiative attempted to create a global consensus on how to effectively address the mounting burden of NCDs and, in doing so, to create a framework for developing comprehensive public health policies.
The Ottawa Charter, which resulted from the Ottawa Initiative, laid out five health promotion areas (Onyango, 2017). These areas included: building healthy public policy, creating supportive environments, developing personal skills, strengthening community action, and reorienting health services. The first area, creating a supportive environment, focused on the importance of creating an environment that promoted healthy living (Fertman & Diane Demuth Allensworth, 2017). This included ensuring access to clean air and water, providing safe physical activity and recreational spaces, and promoting healthy diets. The second area, strengthening community action, was aimed at building communities' capacity to address the population's health needs. This included empowering individuals and families to take control of their health, increasing access to health services, and offering health education programs.
The third area, developing personal skills, was focused on helping individuals to develop the skills and knowledge needed to make informed decisions about their health. This included providing health education, offering preventive health services, and helping individuals to develop problem-solving and decision-making skills. The fourth area, reorienting health services, aimed to ensure that health services addressed all individuals' health needs (Fertman & Diane Demuth Allensworth, 2017). This included providing equitable access to quality health care and ensuring that health services were tailored to satisfy the specific demands of certain populations. Finally, the fifth area, building healthy public policy, was aimed at creating policies that promoted health and prevented disease (Onyango, 2017). This included disease prevention, health promotion, and public health policies.
The distinction between health promotion and public health is an important one. Health promotion is anchored on creating individual and community-level changes that promote health and prevent disease. This includes health-promoting polici...