Health and wellness promotion: Nursing

Health is more than just the absence of illness or disease and can be viewed as an objective state of functional stability, balance, and integrity. Illness is a subjective experience of poor health, and wellness can be thought of as a subjective experience of good health.

Health, illness, and wellness are affected by multiple and interrelated dimensions of a person’s life, including physical, mental, social, environmental, and spiritual components.

Now, the health of people and communities is influenced by social determinants of health, which are conditions where people live, work, play, worship, and age.

Social determinants of health include genetic, social, and economic circumstances that promote health and wellness, such as having access to healthcare, healthy foods, education, a safe place to live, as well as one’s genetic inheritance.

Social determinants of health also include inequities like poverty, discrimination, and social inequities, and can limit access to the resources required to meet physical, mental, and emotional needs. This is especially true for specific groups, such as LGBTQ2, Black, and Indigenous peoples that have been disproportionately affected by health inequities.

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, created by the World Health Organization in 1986, identifies prerequisites for health, such as peace, shelter, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, and social justice.

It developed strategies for health for people and their communities to work towards. There are 5 strategies.

Building healthy public policy shapes legislation, regulation and public policies that'll determine how financial and material resources are allocated to people living in the community.

By creating supportive environments, the community acknowledges the interrelationship between health and the natural and built environments; and it’s focused on creating and sustaining healthy and safe spaces through programs like providing quality childcare for workers, ensuring safe workplaces, creating spaces for walking and recreation, and conserving natural resources.