History of Health Promotion

Health promotion was rooted in much earlier shifts within public health that stretch back to the nineteenth century and beyond. The history can briefly be highlighted in the following chronological order:

• 19th century: A notion to improve environment and sanitation, believing poor environment, bad smell was the cause of disease (miasma theory).
• Towards the end of 19th century: Environmental understandings of public health were pushed in more specific direction (e.g. works of Louis Pasteur)
• 1900 – 1970: Social hygiene was concerned with the social influence on individual and public health, and aimed to encourage a focus on preventive medicine.
• 1930s – 1940s: Development of social medicine which helped to change the focus of public health in other ways too, particularly by bringing social sciences into health studies.
• By mid – 20th century: Role of preventing diseases and promoting good health was given much importance in many Western countries. National Health Service (NHS) was established in 1948.
• 1974: A New perspective on Health of Canadians (the Lalonde Report) acknowledged the importance of improving living standards and public health measures.
• Following the Lalonde Report, health promotion began to emerge as a recognizable part within public health. There were series of initiatives introduced by WHO in late 1970s and 1980s that stressed the importance of promoting good health as well as combating disease.
• 1977: WHO implemented “Health for All by The Year 2000”
• 1978: Declaration of Alma Ata advocated a multidimensional approach to health and socioeconomic development and urged active community participation in health care and health education at every level, with a particular focus on primary health care.
• 1986 – 2016: Global Conferences on Health Promotion

1. 1986: Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion: First International Conference on health promotion which was held in Ottawa, Canada. This Charter defined health promotion as “the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve their health”.
2. 1988: Adelaide Recommendation on Healthy Public Policy
3. 1991: Sundsvall Statement on Supportive Environments for Health
4. 1997: Jakarta Declaration on Leading Health Promotion into the 21st Century: The Fourth International Conference on Health Promotion is the first to be held in a developing country, and the first to involve the private sector in supporting health promotion.
5. 2000: Global Conference on Health Promotion: Bridging the Gap, Mexico City
6. 2005: The Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion in a Globalized World
7. 7)2009: Seventh Global Conference on Health Promotion, Nairobi: Closing the implementation gap in health and development through health promotion.
8. 2013: Eighth Global Conference on Health Promotion, Helsinki: The main theme of the conference was “Health in All Policies” (HiAP)
9. 2016: Ninth Global Conference on Health Promotion, Shanghai: The main goal of this conference was to highlight the critical links between promoting health and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.