Community action for health promotion: a strategy to empower individuals and communities.
Health status is directly affected by environmental conditions and by personal health-related behaviors, and it is indirectly affected by environmental conditions that themselves influence health behaviors. A comprehensive approach to health promotion, therefore, should encourage individuals to adopt and maintain personal behaviors that would prevent disease and promote health; discourage health-damaging personal behaviors by individuals and facilitate people engaging in health-promoting behaviors; and eliminate health hazards from the physical and social environment and make that environment more health-promoting. This comprehensive approach would require social and community action to change environmental conditions as well as efforts to change individual behavior. A model of health promotion interventions is developed within which community action plays a central role. The author then presents a model of community organization to influence public policy to achieve health promotion goals. The community organization model, previously tested in comparative case-study research, is illustrated with examples drawn from appropriate health promotion programs.
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School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles 90024-1772.
D003153:Community Health Services / Q000639:trends*; D003256:Community Participation; D015438:Health Behavior; D006291:Health Policy / Q000639:trends; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000639:trends*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011209:Power, Psychological; D012495:San Francisco; D012931:Social Environment