Toward A Healthy Community Organizing Events For Community Health Promotion

Abstract: Guidelines for developing health promotion activities in the community are presented through discussion of a healthy community system model. Health promotion events such as marathons, health fairs, and media campaigns can provide the stimulus, basic information, and general direction that individuals need to make appropriate changes in health habits. Appendices include questionnaires to assess health practices and community services currently available for those interested in collecting health-related data. (ds).

Abstract: A description of a 3-day health fair (HEalth Works '79) sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services includes reactions and comments from participants and observers regarding the success of the fair. The fair was designed to increase awareness and understanding of health promotion among health professionals and the public, to expand the concept of the health fair beyond the traditional emphasis on health screening, to attract media attention to the health promotion and disease prevention, and to encourage individuals to focus on health rather than illness. The fair was intended as a prototype for communities planning similar events. An appendix lists exhibits present at HEalth Works '79. (ds).

In the early stages of planning the Third International Conference in System Science in Health Care, the steering committee members, most of whom had participated in the first conference in Paris (1976) and the second in Montreal (1980), made some basic decisions about organization of subject matter. The earlier meetings had been very successful in bringing together specialists from the health professions and the traditional sciences. In addition to physicians and nurses, these were representatives of the disciplines of the behavioral sciences, system theory, economics, engineering, and the emergency fields of management science and informatics -all concerned with the development of health resources in a broad system context. The reported research and experience of the many disciplines represented had dealt with one or more of three concerns: 1) a major health problem, such as cardiovascular disease, or an important popUlation at risk, such as the elderly or children or workers; 2) some generic aspect of organization and decision making, including trial and evaluation ofinnovative health strategies; and 3) the methodology of research and analysis in system of health service. The challenge to the conference organizers lay in the eliciting and arranging of experiences in such a way that the health services could be seen as purposeful,living, evolving systems.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.