Abstract

GIRALDO OSORIO, Alexandra et al. HEALTH PROMOTION AS A STRATEGY TO ENCOURAGE HEALTHY LIFE STYLES. Hacia promoc. Salud [online]. 2010, vol.15, n.1, pp.128-143. ISSN 0121-7577.

Objective: extend the knowledge on health promotion as a strategy to encourage a healthy life style. Methodology: systematic revision of scientific publications derived from detailed research and revisions on health promotion and healthy life styles, using bibliographical sources such as: Virtual Health Library, databases such as Proquest, LILACS, Dialnet, Ovid, Hinary, Medline and bibliographical indexes such as Scielo, published between 1992 and 2009. In order to determine their pertinence, the abstract of articles and documents was used, and the table of contents was used in the case of books. Results: a detailed description of health promotion as a strategy, its components and application form. Regarding healthy life styles, in addition to the definitions, internal and external factors of people were taken into consideration for encouraging these life styles. An author used health promotion as the basis to propose "Health Promotion Model" that given its contribution to the nursing profession, has been applied to the professional practice and implemented in research projects regarding health. Conclusions: health promotion has become a strategy oriented towards developing individual or group processes and activities in order to modify risky behavior and to adopt healthy life styles. In the same manner, health promotion seeks that people and groups have a better quality of life, considering that human beings are biological entities, but social beings as well, that require intervention by health professionals as a whole, in order to have healthy people and communities.

Keywords : Health promotion; life style; health; quality of life; health behavior; public policies.

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