Health Promotion

Health Promotion
Health promotion involves activities which increase well-being and also enhance wellness or health (Pender, Murdaugh & Parsons, 2006). Health promotion leads to a positive health potential for every individual, which means that those with acute or chronic conditions can also reach the actualization of positive health potential. According to WHO, 2001 health promotion is concerned with establishing new strategies that seek to encourage a wide variety of populations to be healthy and engage in healthy decisions.
In a society improved health requires consistent policies on health promotion, by the co-operation of governments, internal organizations, and private agencies (WHO, 2005). Nurses can be involved in health promotion,

This knowledge would assist the nurse to intervene and teach families how to fulfil and adequate environment that will meet the needs of their child according to the child’s developmental stage.
There are several factors which influence the health of the individual and families evidently, these include;
 Community,
 Socioeconomic level,
 Culture,
 Environment.
These factors either sustain and flourish the health potential or limit the growth of health and well-being. Therefore, health promotion is a process that allows individuals, groups, families, and communities to display control over the determinants of their health behaviours and to take action for improvement.
Health Maintenance
Health maintenance can also be referred to as health protection. These terms refers to activities which maintain an individual’s present state of health and which prevents disease or injury from occurring. These activities are preventive in nature, some examples of health maintenance activities include;
 Developmental screening,
 Surveillance to determine early deviations from normal development,
 Immunizations to prevent