From Bangkok, A New Push for Health Promotion

The conference, held Aug. 7–11, produced as its final document the Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion. The charter identifies the major challenges of addressing the determinants of health in a globalized world and calls for a wide range of stakeholders to commit themselves to efforts to achieve health for all.

Carissa Etienne, assistant director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), was among the participants from more than 100 countries.

The charter calls for more coherence in policies on health promotion and more partnering and investment among governments, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector. It says their efforts should center on four key objectives:

• Ensuring that health promotion is central to the global development agenda
• Making health promotion a core responsibility of governments
• Making health promotion part of good corporate practice
• Encouraging health promotion as a focus of community and civil society activities.

The charter reaffirms the core principles of the field of health promotion as set forth in the 1986 Ottawa Charter, which defined the approach as one that emphasizes prevention and healthy living over biomedical solutions. It tries to identify and affect the root causes of health and to help people increase control over their health. It also encourages the development of personal skills, community action, accessible health services, supportive environments, and public policies that help reduce risks to health. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health are recent examples of global action on health promotion.

A key message of the Bangkok Charter is that effective health promotion requires the involvement of many sectors. Speakers at the conference called for stronger links between the health sector and the development, human rights, human security and environmental communities, among others.

"The fundamental premise of health promotion is that a wide spectrum of actors, representing all sectors of society, must engage in promoting health if the goal of health for all is to be achieved," Catherine Le Gales-Camus, WHO's assistant director-general for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health, told participants in the conference.

LEE Jong-wook, WHO's director-general, praised the new Bangkok Charter and seconded its call for "all stakeholders to work together in a worldwide partnership to fulfill its commitments and carry out its strategies." Lee assured participants in the conference, "The action you take in the light of this charter can radically improve the prospects for health in communities and countries around the world."