Promoting Health & Well-being — Role, Purpose & Supporting Individuals
What Is Health Promotion?
Health promotion covers the full range of activities — from a leaflet in a GP waiting room to a national television campaign — that are designed to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities. In health and social care, understanding the role and purpose of health promotion is not just a theoretical exercise: practitioners at every level are involved in promoting health, whether they are a support worker encouraging a service user to walk more, a school nurse delivering a healthy eating session, or a community health champion running a stop-smoking group.
The Role and Purpose of Health Promotion
The specification identifies four overlapping purposes of health promotion. First, health promotion aims to raise awareness of health and well-being issues — many people do not know, for instance, that they may have high blood pressure, or that they are drinking more alcohol than is safe. Raising awareness through campaigns, screenings and information is the foundation of any health promotion effort.
Second, health promotion aims to increase individuals’ positive lifestyle choices. It is not enough to tell people that smoking is harmful; effective health promotion provides the information, motivation and practical support needed for someone to quit. The goal is to shift from knowledge to behaviour change — from knowing that exercise is good to actually doing it regularly.
Third, health promotion works to reduce risks to health and well-being. By encouraging vaccination, safer sexual practices, reduced alcohol consumption, and regular physical activity, health promotion addresses the major modifiable risk factors for the UK’s most common chronic conditions, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers.
Fourth — and this is the angle that is specific to this qualification and often tested — health promotion aims to reduce health and social care costs. A person who develops type 2 diabetes because of a preventable lifestyle factor will require ongoing NHS treatment, medications, and potentially social care support in later life. Every person who makes a positive lifestyle change, or who is screened and treated early, reduces the demand on publicly funded services. Health promotion is therefore not only a moral priority but an economic one.
The four purposes of health promotion are: raise awareness of health issues; increase positive lifestyle choices; reduce risks to health and well-being; and reduce health and social care costs. The cost-reduction purpose is frequently tested — prevention is cheaper than treatment.
Supporting Individuals to Take Responsibility
One of the most significant shifts in modern health and social care has been the move towards supporting individuals to take responsibility for their own health and well-being, rather than treating them as passive recipients of services. This approach recognises that lasting behaviour change is more likely when the individual is an active participant in their own health journey — not when they are simply told what to do.
Supporting individuals to take responsibility involves three main strategies. The first is prevention and control — providing individuals with the information and tools they need to prevent health problems before they arise or to manage existing conditions effectively. A GP practice running a pre-diabetes prevention programme, or a district nurse teaching a diabetic patient how to monitor their own blood glucose, are both examples of this approach.
The second strategy is educating by providing information and advice. This includes face-to-face consultations with health professionals, written materials such as leaflets and health promotion booklets, online resources, and community health events. The purpose of education is to equip individuals with the knowledge they need to make positive lifestyle choices — but providing information alone is rarely enough. Individuals also need to feel that the changes are achievable and relevant to their own lives. A health professional who provides culturally appropriate information, in a person’s first language, and at the right literacy level, is more likely to enable behaviour change than one who hands over a generic leaflet.
The third strategy is encouraging individuals to utilise their own strengths and informal networks. Rather than creating dependency on services, effective health promotion builds on what individuals already have — their social relationships, community connections, personal capabilities, and previous experience of managing difficulties. A person who is supported to recognise that they have already successfully made one health change (for example, cutting out sugary drinks) is more likely to believe they can make another. Informal networks — family, friends, faith communities, and workplace colleagues — can also be powerful sources of support for behaviour change.
Three strategies for supporting individuals to take responsibility: prevention and control (information and tools to prevent or manage conditions); educating through information and advice (knowledge that enables positive choices); and encouraging use of personal strengths and informal networks (building on what the individual already has rather than creating service dependency).
The Role of Campaigns, Education and Strengths-Based Approaches
At a national level, health campaigns are a key vehicle for raising awareness and enabling choice at scale. Campaigns such as Change4Life (now part of the NHS Better Health platform) and Stoptober reach millions of people through television, social media, GP surgeries and schools. Their power lies in their reach — no individual practitioner can achieve population-level impact alone.
At an individual level, a strengths-based approach in care settings shifts the focus from what a person cannot do to what they already can. A care worker using a strengths-based approach might ask: “What has helped you manage your health in the past?” and “Who in your life could support you with this?” This approach is consistent with the principles of active participation and person-centred care covered earlier in this unit — it treats the service user as the expert on their own life.
Health promotion operates at both local and national levels. At a national level, campaigns can be coordinated by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, NHS England and other organisations, using mass media, social media, and GP referral programmes. At a local level, councils, GP surgeries, schools, voluntary organisations, pharmacies and community groups all play a role. For example, a local authority might fund a walking group for older adults, a school might run a mental health awareness week, or a pharmacy might offer free blood pressure checks. The most effective health promotion connects national campaigns with local delivery, so that the message reaches individuals in their own communities through trusted local contacts.