Health Education and Promotion

Abstract

Health, as a notion of what constitutes a good life, is determined by several factors including socioeconomic background, behavior, and lifestyle choices. Modern health education and promotion is endorsed in several documents by the international community and is described as the process whereby people are enabled to increase control over and improve their health. The focus of health promotion is to achieve equity in health for all. Ethical challenges arise from efforts to improve health through health education and promotion efforts. Problems may arise because the manner in which health promotion is implemented and evaluated does not always take values into consideration. Work in this field is influenced by both scientific and extrascientific values including political, religious, social, and cultural tenets. Strategies may transgress ethical boundaries and become problematic when messages associate behaviors with distasteful characteristics resulting in unintended consequences. Information could be framed such that individuals’ rights to self-determination and liberty are not respected. Consent is vague in this context. Universal strategies may not be sufficient to protect or improve the average health of the population as inequality may worsen or remain high with the gains accruing disproportionately to those that are better off and are already enjoying better health.