Experience Sharing on

The 19^th World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education

by

Kwok Kam-shim, Cathy, Nursing Officer, Central Health Education Unit &

MA So-ling, Andrea, Nursing Officer, Community Liaison Division

The 19^th International Union of Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education was held from 10^th to 15^th June 2007, at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre of Canada.  It was organized by the IUHPE, a leading organization in global network, working to promote health worldwide and contributing to achieve equity in health among and within countries.

The mission of this conference was to review and critically reassess the progress of health promotion since the First International Conference on Health Promotion held in Ottawa of Canada in 1986, which is now widely known as the 'Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion'.  The experts of the conference also highlighted the rise of globalization, health inequities, emerging communicable diseases, burden of chronic diseases, etc. to draw attention to the need for global collaborative efforts in health promotion to meet the emerging challenges.  Furthermore, the conference served as a global platform for health promoters worldwide to share knowledge-based and evidence-based practice in health promotion.  The programmes of the 19^th IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education were therefore designed in parallel with the five action strategies of the Ottawa Charter. They were 'to build healthy public policy'; 'to create supportive environments for health'; 'to strengthen community action for health'; 'to develop personal skills' and 'to re-orient health services'. Coupled with a wide spectrum of activities, including keynote presentations, debate and dialogue sessions, skills building workshops, symposia, poster presentations as well as exhibitions were provided for the delegates.

The Central Health Education Unit (CHEU) and the Community Liaison Division (CLD) are sister units working in close partnership to promote the major health initiatives organized by the Department of Health for improving population health in Hong Kong.  These initiatives have been developed and implemented in ways which translate the health promotion strategies of the Ottawa Charter into practical application.  Making reference to tackling childhood obesity, CHEU has launched a territory-wide EatSmart@ school.hk Campaign in 2006 to promote healthy eating among primary school students. The campaign adopted a multi-pronged health promotion approach to build healthy  eating school policy; create supportive environment for healthy eating in schools through improving lunchbox menus and selling more healthy snacks in schools; solicit community participation through media influence, generating public opinion; adopt a partnership approach and develop personal skills of parents and teachers through the 'School NutriAgent Project'.  In fact, this best mix of health promotion actions, which are in line with the Ottawa Charter, has already generated early success of the campaign.

To conclude, the training in the 19^th IUHPE World Conference has greatly enhanced our understanding in the broad vision of the Ottawa Charter and its practical relevance to the major initiatives held by the Department of Health. This was our first experience in attending such a world-class conference of health promotion.  We were proud of being the delegates representing our Department and did enjoy the chances in learning good practices in health promotion from different countries, meeting people of different races, and catching up with delegates coming from Hong Kong.