It is our position that the primary objective and outcome of Ontario’s integrated health
systems should be the promotion of health. This requires a common understanding of
what is meant by health. At the root of health promotion theory and practice is the belief hat health is “a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as hysical capacities” (WHO, 1986). Far more than the absence of disease or illness, health s the maximal attainment of physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being. This broad,holistic understanding of what it means to be healthy radically challenges our health ector’s dominant, narrow definition of health. A health promotion perspective demands hat we surface and test our assumptions of what it means to be healthy, how health is easured or assessed, the factors that determine health, and, most importantly, how we an most effectively employ our personal and public resources to enhance health at the individual, community and population level.