The health promotion strategic framework main report

Abstract

Since its emergence at an international level in the 1980s, health promotion in Ireland has developed and grown, with significant achievements in the areas of cardiovascular health, healthy public policies and healthy settings. This Health Promotion Strategic Framework (HPSF) provides the HSE with the means by which it can meet its commitments to protect and promote the health of the population. The framework is informed by the best available international and national evidence of health promotion effectiveness and includes a model to illustrate the main elements of health promotion in the HSE. This model outlines the process by which health promotion will address health inequalities and the determinants of health, as well as the health promotion outcomes it seeks to achieve through the three priority settings of health services, community and education. Protecting and promoting the health of the population requires intersectoral and interdisciplinary approaches to health promotion. These approaches include key specific roles for the Health Promotion workforce and for the broader health and social care workforce in addition to the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and statutory and voluntary sectors. These commitments require the re-orientation of health and social care services in Ireland to include the development of organisational structures that support the promotion of health and the development of the skills and capacity of those outside the Health Promotion workforce to adopt a stronger evidence-based health promoting role.