A Systems View of Health Promotion

Abstract

This article presents a systems view of health promotion and education. We offer an overview of systems theory, including the hierarchy of systems, the relationship between a system and its environment, and agent-host interactions. A host is any system that may face disruption from an environmental agent or perturbation from an adjacent system. A system is healthy to the extent it can prevent, parry, or dissipate the effects of disruptions and perturbations. Systems can collaborate and cooperate to enhance their capacity to respond adaptively to potential threats from agents. This offers new insights into the three levels of prevention, and into health promotion practice. Health promotion is any effort to influence host systems in ways that will enhance their capacity to prevent, resist, dissipate or respond adaptively to potential threats from their environment. We also offer an account of the balance between stability (or lack of) in the environment and the importance of flexibility enabling systems to adapt to change. We examine high-level wellness, a function of knowledge, learning, skills and stored-up resources that enhance adaptability, flexibility and timeliness in a system's response to anticipated and unanticipated potentially disruptive environmental agents. Finally we draw implications for health promotion and education practice. The health promoter / educator is a helpful agent seeking to influence systems at various levels in the hierarchy of systems in ways that will enhance their capacity to prevent, resist, dissipate or respond adaptively to potential disruptive agents in their environments.