Home - Our
programs - Health
Promotion Hub
What skills do I need to be a health promoter?
What is health promotion?
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health promotion as: "the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health”. Health promoters work in diverse settings that include schools, workplaces, and community health services. Their clients and partners may be individuals, communities or even society as a whole.
What skills do I need?
Because of the dynamic nature of health promotion, practitioners need a diverse range of theoretical and practical skills in the areas of:
 health communication
health education
self-help/mutual aid
organizational change
community development and mobilization
policy development
advocacy
These skills are the foundation for health promotion competencies, a set of criteria that people working in the field of health promotion are expected to meet in order to implement strategies that work.
Health Nexus’ Starting Out in Health is an excellent new guide for people new to the field.
What are some examples of health promotion?
To help people increase control over and improve their health, health promoters need to be able to:
Demonstrate knowledge necessary for conducting health promotion
Apply a determinants of health framework to an analysis of chronic disease prevention.
Plan appropriate health promotion programs
Plan a community garden with partners in a diverse inner-city neighbourhood.
Contribute to policy development.
Work in coalitions to advocate for changes to social assistance rates.
Conduct a community needs assessment for a specific issue.
Scan and map networks to plan for a community-wide forum on obesity.
Engage in partnerships and collaboration.
Collaborate with city planners and public health units to plan community walking trails.
Communicate effectively with community members and other professionals.
Use new media technology such as blogs, webinars, wikis and podcasts to plan and promote a breastfeeding campaign.
Organize, implement and manage health promotion interventions.
Develop a stay-in-school initiative for at-risk youth.
How do I learn health promotion skills?
In Canada, there are many options for higher education studies in health promotion, including programs at Community Colleges, universities, graduate level degrees and distance education.
There are also opportunities to learn about health promotion on the Internet. One of the most comprehensive online sources is HP 101 Health Promotion On-line Course, developed by the former Ontario Health Promotion Resource System.
Where can you go for more information?
 Health Nexus Learning Resources
Health Promotion Models and Approaches (Slideshow)
Starting Out in Health Promotion (Manual and Slideshows)
Centres for health promotion across Canada offer workshops, seminars and other resources:
Health Nexus .
Centre for Health Promotion, University of Toronto
Centre for Community Health Promotion Studies
Centre for Health Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada
Ontario Health Promotion E-Mail Bulletin, a weekly electronic news and resources bulletin, produced by Health Nexus and The Health Communication Unit, offers a valuable, select, summarized information exchange among Ontario community leaders, practitioners and researchers interested in health promotion.
Past OHPE Bulletin issues are easily searchable and accessible on the Internet at To be added to the list for this weekly bulletin, send an e-mail request to info@ohpe.ca with your e-mail address, or use the handy subscription form on the OHPE Bulletin website.
Le Bloc-Notes is a biweekly French language health promotion bulletin.
|
