Facilitating Health Promotion Programs at the Local Level: An Educational Approach

지방자치단체의 건강증진사업 활성화 방안 - 교육적 접근을 중심으로 -

This paper will discuss about how we can foster educational support mechanisms to facilitate health promotion programs at the local level. Health promotion in Korea is in the early developmental stage; it has only been since the Health Promotion Act was legislated in 1995, the health promotion programs have been planned and implemented. In the context of the recent decentralization process, local health departments have a major responsibility for developing and implementing health promotion programs at the local level. The short history of health promotion in Korea has meant that local public health departments have limited experience and organizational capacity for health promotion planning ＆ practice. The results of one survey for investigating the progress of health promotion at the local level are instructive. The survey demonstrated that the public health workers recognized that the lack of personnels, insufficient budget, the lack of policy ＆ the organizational support, the lack of skill ＆ knowledge to be effective health promotors, the lack of guidance for health promotion practice were major barriers to implementing health promotion programs at the local level. The object of this paper is to suggest some ways of overcoming barriers to implementing health promotion programs at the local level This paper emphasizes on the importance of educational supports as well as environmental supports - legislative, policy, organizational, economical - in building the organizational capacity and infrastructure of local health department for health promotion. It suggests some ways of providing educational supports to the public health workers at the local level. and supports the positions that educational opportunities for training in health promotion can be better provided to the public health workers at the provincial level rather than at the national level. It argues that the educational ＆ training programs should be developed and based on the educational need assessment; that the application of the main educational principles ＆ theoretical models for health promotion be used to develop educational programs for the public health workers; and that professional health organizations should make plans to provide more educational programs at their annual conferences or at other convenient times. These kinds of educational supports facilitate the ability of public health workers to improve their capacity for health promotion practice at the local level and help to alleviate some of the pressure on state resources.