Health Promotion

9 Pages 2170 Words

Introduction
The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the many approaches to, and considerations of, health promotion and health education. The fundamental basis of care, that being the nursing process of assessing, planning, implementing and evaluating, will be used to demonstrate the art of promoting health education. The paper hopes to convey that the definitions of health promotion and health education are being redefined and that nurses predominantly instigate health education and only rarely take part in health promotion. Therefore the focus of the paper will be on the nurse’s assessment and planning for the client within the process of health education rather than health promotion. A strong emphasis will be placed on client needs on an individual basis as well as special focus on the client’s ability to contribute towards their own health decisions. Finally a case study will be used to demonstrate how a health promotion plan is a cyclic process with the nurse contributing by helping the client make educated choices based on the nurse’s knowledge of client focused care.

Context of Professional Practice as Health Education
Whitehead D (2004) proposes that there is a fundamental difference between health promotion and health education. The latter being what a nurses currently does. Whitehead (2004) defines health promotion as
“…the process by which the ecologically-driven socio-political-economic determinants of health are addressed as they impact on individuals and the communities within which they interact.”
Therefore health promotion looks to exploit and improve social structure by means of encouraging participation between agents in different sectors and organization It therefore implies an act which aims to change and empower communities by political petition, scheduling change and raising a critical consciousness.
The abovementioned definition suggests a holistic approach compared to the World Health Org...