Achieving SDGs and addressing health emergencies in Africa: strengthening health promotion

Abstract

In 1986, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened the first Global Conference on Health Promotion held in Ottawa, Canada. This conference yielded the Ottawa Charter which defined health promotion as the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. A series of conferences followed and in 2005, WHO convened the Sixth Global Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, which yielded the Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion. This Charter for the first time expanded the role of health promotion to include addressing social determinants of health. Ministers of Health from 47 countries of the WHO Regional Office for Africa in 2012 endorsed the Health Promotion: Strategy for the African Region. This Strategy highlighted eight priority interventions required to address health risk factors and their determinants. In 2011, the Rio Political Declaration on Addressing Social Determinants of Health was adopted by Health Ministers and civil society groups to address inequalities and inequities within and between populations. The main action areas were good governance to tackle the root causes of health inequities; promoting participation and ownership; community leadership for action on social determinants; global action on social determinants to align priorities and stakeholders; and monitoring progress on implementation of policies and strategies. Health promotion has been prominent as part of disease outbreak response, including for Ebola and COVID-19. It has been an integral part of improving maternal and child health mortality and morbidity as well as TB, HIV/AIDS and malaria; and lately reducing the impact of noncommunicable diseases, namely diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer. While challenges continue in strengthening health promotion, there have been concerted efforts to place health promotion on the development agenda in countries through Health in All Policies (HiAP), capacity strengthening, monitoring and evaluation, and innovative financing policy options using dedicated tax from tobacco and alcohol, and road use.

Gendered gaps to tuberculosis prevention and care in Kenya: a political economy analysis study

“…Research must be prioritised at the country and regional level with adequate dissemination capacity to inform policy and practice 73–75. Different political prioritisations often impede these, such as poor governance and limited financial and, budgetary prioritisation 64…”

“…The need for targeted gender-responsive TB interventions is consistent with other study findings, including a study done across highly burdened TB countries, which reported on the need to consider efficient mechanisms in the policy and administration, including innovative financing policy options for successful gender-responsive Open access TB implementation guidelines and policies. 64 The 2011 Rio political declaration emphasised the need to address inequalities and inequities around the social determinants of health, including giving special attention to genderrelated aspects. 64 Therefore, mitigating the challenges associated with treatment such as time loss, income, distance to treatment and household expenditures will address inequalities and inequities that will improve access to TB services and health services in general.…”

Dynamics of Health Financing among the BRICS: A Literature Review

“…The BRICS' history of healthcare reform has always emphasized the role of government in healthcare provision, equitable access to services, and financial security [58,59], believing that a market-oriented approach to a social welfare sector like health would increase inequality [58]. The government serves the following tasks in these nations' contemporary healthcare systems: (i) coordination, management-coordination and management of the overall health system requires sufficient resources, including financial, manpower, time, and space; (ii) implementing innovative health financing policy opportunities to warrant that health-promoting activities have sufficient funding to attain UHC; (iii) using pieces of evidence from the health promotion research outcomes to advise health policies and strategies; and (iv) encouraging community participation during healthcare program development [29,60,61]. In an emergency, the government can also act as a regulator, as governments around the world did during COVID-19 by allocating essential medicines, carrying out mass vaccination, and in an emergency response to the pandemic, some countries rapidly bolstered their workforce by training community-based outreach workers, contact tracers, and paramedics, allowing new graduates to begin direct practice while encouraging retired health workers to return to practice [61].…”

“…The government serves the following tasks in these nations' contemporary healthcare systems: (i) coordination, management-coordination and management of the overall health system requires sufficient resources, including financial, manpower, time, and space; (ii) implementing innovative health financing policy opportunities to warrant that health-promoting activities have sufficient funding to attain UHC; (iii) using pieces of evidence from the health promotion research outcomes to advise health policies and strategies; and (iv) encouraging community participation during healthcare program development [29,60,61]. In an emergency, the government can also act as a regulator, as governments around the world did during COVID-19 by allocating essential medicines, carrying out mass vaccination, and in an emergency response to the pandemic, some countries rapidly bolstered their workforce by training community-based outreach workers, contact tracers, and paramedics, allowing new graduates to begin direct practice while encouraging retired health workers to return to practice [61].…”

Empowerment of individuals in Iranian health systems: a qualitative study using the Z-cognitive map approach

“…First, the purpose of information and education strategies is multifold: to equip people to make better use of opportunities; to develop better access to health services; to secure and safely exercise a range of human rights; to make wise decisions and actions; and to promote overall health literacy. This strategy depends on various factors, such as education, personal abilities, working life, culture, language, and gender [ 6 , 7 ]. Second, accountability means being able to answer questions from individuals and organizations with regard to decisions and actions taken from a nonmedical perspective [ 8 ].…”