Promoting Health: Global Perspectives

Citation

Speller, V. (2006), "Promoting Health: Global Perspectives", Health Education, Vol. 106 No. 1, pp. 71-72. https://doi.org/10.1108/he.2006.106.1.71.1

I did not know what to expect when I started reading this book. A glance at the contents page had revealed a vast sweep of material on health and regional issues and a potentially overwhelming litany of data on global health problems. However on further reading I was impressed by the way the book not only clearly presents this massive amount of current data about the global problems we are facing, but also is remarkably human and humble about the way some of these issues are being tackled, and the solutions that health promotion has to offer, often within an unsupportive policy context and the absence of an infrastructure of health promotion capacity. Rather than being outfaced by the scale of the problems, this book shows that they can and are being tackled. What the editors have managed to achieve is a collection of essays from leaders of health promotion from across the world, in many cases not only giving us the benefit of their experience and grasp of the issues, but also providing a remarkable collection of personal histories and insightful and thoughtful reflections on the development of health promotion as a significant and successful global field of public health. It is a unique collection of perspectives about health promotion, ably coupled with extensive and informative data on global health concerns, that will be of interest both to those studying the development and practice of health promotion, and as a public health text of wider relevance to all concerned with global health.

Part one reviews global health issues from an inequalities perspective and provides some initial examples of effective actions. The tensions between upstream and downstream approaches are well illustrated by the example of the use of insecticide treated bed nets to prevent malaria. Faced with the apparently impossible task of eradication, a simple health promotion intervention requiring access to resources and behavioural changes had dramatic mediating effects reducing episodes of malaria by 50 per cent. While most of this section sets the scene reviewing the disease burden and the scale of the challenges, Mittelmark takes a different tack looking at the systems and orientations of health promotion worldwide. This provides a useful stimulus to thinking “outside the box” in terms of the role of global health promotion, developing both global advocacy and networks, and also a wider theoretical base for the profession through new academic alliances. These twin themes of the health problems and the potential for health promotion structural solutions recur throughout the book.

Part two provides in depth analyses of issues relating to non‐communicable diseases, food, tobacco, HIV/AIDS and environment change. Each of these chapters would be of use in isolation to anyone wishing to update on the global context of specific health topics. Yach and colleagues remind us that only in the African WHO region is communicable disease still more prevalent than non‐communicable diseases, that diseases of lifestyle are not just restricted to the developed parts of the world. Looking at food and health, Caraher and others neatly pick this theme up by describing the communicable nature of lifestyle change through the global community as globalisation affects food choice and availability. The other chapters in this section provide excellent overviews of the scale of particular health problems, the challenges in addressing them and where successful inroads have been made.

Section three explores strategies for promoting health in the global context from leaders in the field in different regions. These remind us that the timescale for the understanding of health promotion theory and adoption of strategies are hugely variable around the world ‐ for example Health for All was only adopted formally in Africa in 2000. Chapters from Latin America, Hong Kong, the former Soviet Union, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the USA, all provide in depth analyses of regional health concerns and the development of health promotion functions in those regions, demonstrating the influences of culture, politics, education and training capacity that underlay the philosophical and methodological tensions inherent in the field of health promotion today.

This book will be useful to health promotion and public health students and professionals working at any level, who wish to develop a broader understanding of global health concerns, or who want to further their knowledge of specific issues and their global impact, or the issues facing different regions and their health promotion response.