As stated in Section 4, the wide range of influences on our health means that promotion of public health is not just confined to the health sector alone. Instead, partnership is needed across sectors. An approach to creating public policies that holds this value is ‘Health in All Policies’ (HiAP). In the activity below you will explore what is meant by this concept more.
Allow 45 minutes
With growing interest in population health among researchers, policy makers, the media and the general public, a large quantity of information has become available, and visual representations of information (infographics) are becoming increasingly popular.
You may have noted that the infographic contains key principles of HiAP, such as:
After reading a bit more about health in all policies, you may have noted that there were certain ideas and principles that may not have been clear in the infographic, such as:
You may have noted that infographics are useful in generating interest in an area, such as this infographic which displays information very visually and through the use of a clear example. This is good for use by the general public, however it does not contain detailed information that may be of use for people like you, who are interested in more detail on the topic.
HiAP is high on the agenda of current public health activity, but there has been many barriers to implementing and achieving its vision. For example, institutions (such as government departments) have very rigid ways of working and don’t often ‘speak to each other’. In addition, there is still a tendency to see health as only the concern of the health and social care sector, when, as we have seen, it is ‘everybody’s business’. Given the current and emerging public health challenges, public health requires greater multisector-working to create a health promoting social context.
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