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Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2009
Mainstreaming Health into Public Policies
January 28-30, 2009
Imperial Queens Park Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand
Health has become a very high priority global development agenda in the last decade judging from the tremendous increase in health related ODA, global and national political attention, global health partners, and active public involvement. These investments, however, focus mainly on tackling the three major infectious diseases, i.e. HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and less on the health systems capacity building and other MDGs such as maternal and child mortality, nutrition, and environmental health.
The Constitution establishing the World Health Organization defines health as “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of diseases and infirmity”. The Executive Board of WHO in 1996 added ‘spiritual’ well-being to the definition, although not yet globally accepted. It has been accepted with ample evidences that health is a multi-sectoral and multidimensional social issue. All public policies thus have both positive and negative implications on well-being, or health. Improving health thus necessitates the involvement and the advocacy for ‘health’ lens in all public sector policies.
Healthy public policy is thus an explicit concern for health promotion and development. The main intention of healthy public policy is to create a supportive environment to enable people to lead healthy lives, as stated in the 1996 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion that:
“Health promotion goes beyond health care. It puts health on the agenda of policy makers in all sectors and at all levels, directing them to be aware of the health consequences of their decisions and to accept their responsibilities for health….
“Joint action contributes to ensuring safer and healthier goods and services, healthier public services, and cleaner, more enjoyable environments.”
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