PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH PROMOTION

Contemporary Issues in Public Health and Health Promotion

Health Promotion

The concept of health promotion initially emerged and continues to gain strength as an approach to improving health status and health condition of people. Health promotion is a key component of the complex relationship between actions, knowledge, attitudes, behaviour, and health outcomes from the individual to the societal level. Health promotion is increasingly applicable and relevant to practice within health care and health research specialty around the world (Wills 2000, 55-341).

The concept of health promotion is based on the interpretation of social and cultural health, and disease. The health promotion is the process of enabling people to gain greater control over their health. It is a dynamic and evolving concept referring to the management of health of people in the context of their daily lives. Health promotion concept promotes the attainment of the highest level of physical, mental, and social development. Mark defined health promotion as a process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health.

Another definition that defines the health promotion suggests that health promotion is the process of enabling individuals and communities to increase control over the determinants of health, and thereby to improve their health. It includes the education, prevention, where people act in coordination to policies, systems, and lifestyles, through advocacy, empowerment, and building a social support system that enable them to live a longer healthy life.

Defining Health

It is necessary to determine which factors constitute the components of health. Many researchers have identified fundamental concepts which lead to universal definition development to define the concept of health (Tones 2001, 22-326). Contemporary approach towards defining health is more holistic compare to conventional definition of health which defines it as a phenomenon of presence or absence of disease.

Approaches to Health Promotion

There are five approaches that are commonly used for enhancing health promotion. These approaches include:

Medical approach

Behaviour change approach

Educational approach

Empowerment approach

Social change approach

The paper shall discuss a public heath issue while evaluating different aspects in terms of health promotion and the matter in holistic view.

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is a disease caused by mycobacterium. As a rule, tuberculosis affects the lungs, but in rare cases can affect other parts of the body, such as lymph nodes, skeletal system, and even the brain. Tuberculosis is spread from person to person by droplet infection through coughing, sneezing, talking and other things close contact with TB patients. It is important to know that although people may become infected with TB from another person, the infection usually occurs during prolonged contact with a person whose disease is in an active form. Theoretically, they would have to spend eight hours a day for six months or live with someone who is sick with TB, 24 hours a day for about two months to get and if a person with tuberculosis was the appropriate treatment for at least two weeks, the infection is unlikely. Tuberculosis is not spread through contact with objects used by the patient.

There are open and closed forms of tuberculosis. If you open the form in the sputum ...