Health Promotion Cheat Sheet
The core ideas of Health Promotion distilled into a single, scannable reference — perfect for review or quick lookup.
Quick Reference
Social Determinants of Health
The conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, and age that affect a wide range of health outcomes and risks. These include socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood environment, employment, social support networks, and access to healthcare.
Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion
A 1986 document from the first International Conference on Health Promotion that defined health promotion and established five action areas: building healthy public policy, creating supportive environments, strengthening community action, developing personal skills, and reorienting health services.
Health Belief Model
A psychological model that predicts health behavior by focusing on an individual's perceived susceptibility to a condition, perceived severity of the condition, perceived benefits of taking action, perceived barriers to action, cues to action, and self-efficacy.
Social-Ecological Model
A framework for understanding the multifaceted and interactive effects of personal and environmental factors that determine health behaviors. It identifies five nested levels of influence: individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy.
Transtheoretical Model (Stages of Change)
A model of intentional behavior change that describes five stages individuals move through: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. It recognizes that change is a process, not an event, and that relapse is a normal part of the cycle.
Health Literacy
The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. Low health literacy is associated with poorer health outcomes and higher healthcare costs.
Health Equity
The attainment of the highest level of health for all people. Achieving health equity requires valuing everyone equally, addressing avoidable inequalities, and eliminating disparities in health and its determinants caused by historical and contemporary injustices.
Empowerment
In health promotion, the process through which people gain greater control over the decisions and actions affecting their health. Empowerment can occur at individual, organizational, and community levels and is both a process and an outcome of effective health promotion.
Salutogenesis
An approach introduced by Aaron Antonovsky that focuses on factors supporting health and well-being rather than on factors causing disease. The core concept is the 'sense of coherence,' which describes a person's ability to comprehend, manage, and find meaning in life experiences.
Motivational Interviewing
A client-centered, directive counseling technique that enhances motivation for change by helping people explore and resolve ambivalence. It employs open-ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, and summarizing (OARS) to support behavior change.
Key Terms at a Glance
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