Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion
First International Conference on Health Promotion
Ottawa, 21 November 1986 - WHO/HPR/HEP/95.1
The first International Conference on Health Promotion, meeting in Ottawa this 21st day of
November 1986, hereby presents this CHARTER for action to achieve Health for All by the
year 2000 and beyond.
This conference was primarily a response to growing expectations for a new public health
movement around the world. Discussions focused on the needs in industrialized countries, but
took into account similar concerns in all other regions. It built on the progress made through
the Declaration on Primary Health Care at Alma-Ata, the World Health Organization's
Targets for Health for All document, and the recent debate at the World Health Assembly on
intersectoral action for health.
Health Promotion
Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve,
their health. To reach a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, an individual
or group must be able to identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or
cope with the environment. Health is, therefore, seen as a resource for everyday life, not the
objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as
well as physical capacities. Therefore, health promotion is not just the responsibility of the
health sector, but goes beyond healthy life-styles to well-being.
Prerequisites for Health
The fundamental conditions and resources for health are:
peace,
shelter,
education,
food,
income,
a stable eco-system,
sustainable resources,
social justice, and equity.
Improvement in health requires a secure foundation in these basic prerequisites.
Advocate
Good health is a major resource for social, economic and personal development and an
important dimension of quality of life. Political, economic, social, cultural, environmental,
behavioural and biological factors can all favour health or be harmful to it. Health promotion
action aims at making these conditions favourable through advocacy for health.
Enable
Health promotion focuses on achieving equity in health. Health promotion action aims at
reducing differences in current health status and ensuring equal opportunities and resources to