The Department of Health Promotion : a lobby within government

Abstract

'The Department of Health Promotion: A Lobby within Government' is a qualitative study - depicting health promotion as an activity deeply embedded in complex, dynamic systems. Health promotion emerges as the cutting-edge rationale for maintaining and improving population health. Its effectiveness in mobilising healthy public policy and pro-health legislative change depends on the synergic interaction of multiple stakeholders and interventions at different locale - the application of artful lobbying on actors exhibiting a degree of good will. This study asks whether in this urea. the Health Promotion Department proves an effective catalyst in the transformation of health promotion theory into practice. This study adopts a qualitative approach: building on pervasive interviews conducted with key people at the Health Division and the Health Promotion Department - counterbalanced by a sound secondary source base. It is argued that while the Health Promotion Department is very effective in engendering public health awareness, financial and human resource constraints. along with a pre-set policy strategy render it a toothless mechanism for lobbying and mobilising government toward the enactment of pro-health legislation and the adoption of better health practices. A contribution to knowledge for the local context lies in the growing need for active community participation. professional lobbying, and the assiduous collection of qualitative data relating to public health needs and reams on the investment for health. This would facilitate future research and enable better policy-making in the area.