Reflective Essay: The Ottawa Charter For Public Health Prevention

Public health is described as the ‘science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized effort of society’. This definition recognizes that our health is affected not only by biological factors, but also by a wide range of social, economic and environmental factors.
Health protection spans primary prevention, such as ensuring safe food and water supplies, providing advice to national food and drug safety regulators, protecting people from environmental threats, and having a regulatory framework for controlling infectious diseases in place. Ensuring proper food handling in restaurants and establishing smoke-free bylaws are examples of health protection measures.
Public health protection also deals

A traditional public health protection or risk reduction approach to the problem of the bodies in the river might involve adding protective netting to the bridge. Even though nets might not deter a determined suicide attempt, it could reduce impulse suicides and it would help to make the problem visible by reminding passers-by that suicides have occurred in that spot. This recognition may help indirectly, by raising vigilance in the public and encouraging people to take early warning signs

Health education was initially seen as a key approach to modifying health behaviours, but subsequent recognition that education alone was insufficient broadened the field to health promotion. In 1986, Ottawa was the venue for an international conference sponsored by the WHO to establish the basic design principles for health promotion programmes. The resulting charter proposed a plan of action to achieve health for all by the year 2000.
There is a range of services delivered by NHS that improve and protect health. A few examples of the range of services