Ottawa Charter

The Ottawa Charter was developed in 1986 at the First International Conference on Health Promotion. The Charter recognised the many determinants of health and developed five (5) action areas to be used in health promotion to address these determinants. The five action areas are:

Build Healthy Public Policy – policy development at all levels seeks to promote health. It includes: legislation, fiscal measures, taxation, and organizational change. Health, income and social policies are used to foster equity and ensures safer and healthier goods and services, healthier public services, and cleaner more enjoyable environments. Policies need to identify obstacles to health and seek to remove them, making the healthier choice the easiest one.

Create Supportive Environments – there is a link between people’s health and their environment, requiring a socioecological approach to health. Reciprocal maintenance of environments is the guiding principle. Work and leisure should promote health, not demote it. Thus health promotion should create safe working environments that are enjoyable, assess health impacts of developing infrastructure (buildings, energy etc), and protect natural and built environments.

Strengthen Community Actions – community action is strengthened through communities being involved in setting priorities, making decisions, planning strategies and implementing them to improve health outcomes. The process’ goal is to empower communities, which improves outcomes of health promotion.

Develop Personal Skills – requires the provision of information, education and life skill development. This increases options and control for individuals over their own health. It is essential t equip people for life long learning and to develop skills for coping with ill health. This is done through school, home, and community settings.

Reorient Health Services – health promotion is the responsibility of governments, institutions, professionals, community groups and individuals. Reorienting health services is about the shift towards a system which promotes health, rather than curative services. Health services need to support the needs of individuals and communities to promote health, connecting the health sector with social, political, economic and physical environments. This requires greater health research and professional education and training. The shift is to focus on the needs of the entire individual, not just their injury, illness or disease.

For an area of the Ottawa Charter to be properly addressed in a health initiative there must be many strategies that represent the area within the campaign. People must almost feel that there is nowhere to hide from messages regarding their health behaviours. We can think of the Ottawa Charter as a well coordinated army that surrounds and attacks poor health behaviours or encourages positive health behaviours. Consider the following example of the influences related to areas of the Ottawa Charter that surround a smoker in a normal day.

Examples of Ottawa Charter in Action

Head to Health Initiative 2017

Is an example of a health promotion plan that effectively reflects areas of the Ottawa Charter is the Head to Health website, launched in October 2017. The site is a way for people experiencing mental health issues, or people who are worried about others’ mental health, to access easy to understand, reliable information; links to support services; and practical resources. The site has been designed to help improve the lives of Australians with mental illnesses, and to promote greater awareness of strategies to improve well-being in the general community. It was developed as part of the federal government’s response to National Mental Health Commission’s ‘Contributing Lives, Thriving Communities – National Review of Mental Health Programmes and Services’ in 2014.

The site provides links to online and phone services that help with a range of mental health issues, and promote well-being. The services are divided into five main sections.

• Living a meaningful life, including resources to help stay physically healthy, build strong relationships, ind a sense of fulfillment and feel safe.

• Mental health difficulties, which provides resources for people, and their loved ones, experiencing mental health conditions or disorders.

• Supporting yourself, which provides practical suggestions and links for where to seek support, including the details of services that help with specific concerns or that support specific demographic groups.

• Supporting someone else, which provides practical suggestions and links for carers, including the details of services that support specific cultural groups or age groups.

On 26 November 2015, the Australian Government released its Response to the Commission’s Review Contributing Lives, Thriving Communities - Review of Mental Health Programmes and Services. A key element of the Government’s Response was making optimal use of digital mental health services through the development of a digital mental health gateway, Head to Health. Head to Health aims to help people more easily access information, advice and Australian digital mental health treatment options (and non-digital options if considered more appropriate to need).

National Tobacco Strategy 2012–18

Smoking bans have contributed to reduced rates of smoking. The Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy established the importance of a National Tobacco Strategy in November 2004. While levels of smoking have reduced in all age groups and demographics since the strategy was released in 2004, it is estimated that approximately 15 000 Australians still die every year from tobacco and smoking-related diseases.

The National Tobacco strategy is a very successful example of the Ottawa Charter at work. The 2012–18 strategy is a multifaceted campaign with nine priorities:

• protect public health policy, including tobacco control policies, from tobacco industry interference

• strengthen mass media campaigns to: motivate smokers to quit and recent quitters to remain quit; discourage uptake of smoking; and reshape social norms about smoking

• continue to reduce the affordability of tobacco products

• bolster and build on existing programs and partnerships to reduce smoking rates among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

• strengthen efforts to reduce smoking among people in populations with a high prevalence of smoking

• eliminate remaining advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products

• consider further regulation of the contents, product disclosure and supply of tobacco products and alternative nicotine delivery systems

• reduce exceptions to smoke-free workplaces, public places and other settings

• provide greater access to a range of evidence-based cessation services and supports to help smokers to quit.