Floating in Port Wine

1.  For much of recent Western history, health has been defined as the absence of bodily disease and illness and was seen in medical terms. According to this view, creating health for people meant providing medical care to treat or prevent disease and illness.

2. In the late 1940s, the World Health Organization (WHO) challenged this physically and medically oriented view of health by declaring that ‘health is a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being and is not merely the absence of disease.’

3. In the 1970s, the importance of the lifestyle and behaviour of the individual became the main focus on the prevention of disease and illness. Specific behaviours which were seen to increase risk of disease, such as smoking, lack of fitness and unhealthy eating habits, were targeted.

4. The broad social-ecological view of health was endorsed at the first International Conference of Health Promotion held in 1986, Ottawa, Canada where people from 38 countries agreed and declared that, ‘the fundamental conditions and resources for health are peace, shelter, education, food, a viable income, a stable eco-system, sustainable resource, social justice and equity.’

5. The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1986) states that, ‘good health is a major resource for social, economic and personal development and an important dimension of qualify of life. Political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, behavioural and biological factors can all favour health or be harmful to it.’

6. The creation of health thus included addressing issues such as poverty, pollution, urbanisation, natural resource depletion, social alienation and poor working conditions.