Health promotion in the family

Abstract

The year 1994 has been dedared by the United Nations as the International Year of the Family, indicating the social importance vested in the Family. This investment would be a complete failure if the active members of this same society do not act upon the idea and use the family as the fulcrum for general social improvement. One way of ameliorating society through the family has been acted upon by the Health Promotion Department. What the department has done is that it has changed from the thematic approach that is from themes such as smoking, AIDS, nutrition to the settings approach. This approach is basically looking at society as a number of different settings namely workplace, schools, and families/ communities. This is really a more advanced approach than the thematic one as it encompasses most of society and meets people wherever it is most convenient for them. This, however, does not mean that the themes have been left out, on the contrary, these have been expanded and adapted according to the needs of the different target populations.