Foundations of Well-Being
TigerWell is informed by research and best practices. The following are some of the key foundational documents that have shaped our vision for change.
Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion World Health Organization 1986
This document resulted from the World Health Organization’s first International Conference on Health Promotion, held in Ottawa in 1986.
Highlights from the document
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 promotion is not just the responsibility of the health sector, but goes beyond healthy lifestyles to well-being. Health promotion demands coordinated action by all concerned.
The fundamental conditions and resources for health are peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice and equity.
Political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, behavioral, and biological factors can all favor health or be harmful to it. Health promotion action aims at making these conditions favorable through advocacy.
Five action areas for health promotion
Building healthy public policy
Creating supportive environments
Strengthening community actions
Developing personal skills
Re-orienting health care services toward prevention of illness and promotion of health
Health Promoting Universities: Concept, Experience, and Framework for Action
World Health Organization— Europe 1998
Based on two conferences, this book is a working document that explores, visualizes and develops the health-promoting potential of universities.
Highlights from the book
A health promoting university takes a settings-based approach to health promotion
Recognizes the campus as an environment in which people live and work
Operationalizes an ecological approach
Policy and systems changes are key
“The concept of the health-promoting university means much more than conducting health education and health promotion for students and staff. It means integrating health into the culture, processes and policies of the university.”
How campuses that do this work matter
Planning is both visionary and pragmatic
It is essential to balance “the development of long-term strategic plans with short-term deliverables…through a series of carefully chosen projects...”
A participatory approach is key
The goal is “…integrated approaches to health policy and planning based on participation and cooperation across sectors and departments….”
Collaborative planning leads to innovation, e.g.,
Tackling problems or issues in new ways
Legitimizing action on newly-appreciated issues
Seeking new ways of working, decision-making, and making policy and planning
Importance of developing infrastructure
“…participation and cooperation… cannot be implemented without creating…”
Enabling mechanisms
The capacity for managing and implementing the project.”
“Integrating health…into the university culture and creating horizontal cooperation and decision-making processes is a long-term process.”
Healthy Campus Program—
American College Health Association
ACHA’s Healthy Campus program aims to empower campus communities to improve health and well-being by helping them to:
Become the cornerstone of the campus by striving toward health equity and eliminating health disparities.
Support a community that increases academic success, student and faculty/staff retention, and life-long learning.
Create a culture where social and physical environments promote health.
Healthy Campus: Core Elements
Healthy Campus is a continuum
Comprehensive health programs for students
Institutions of Higher Education are communities
College health program should be the leader of health on campus
Every campus has a place
Long-term sustainable efforts
Assessment
Leadership
Healthy Campus 2020 has evolved to include national health objectives for students and faculty/staff; promote an action model using an ecological approach; and provide a toolkit for implementation based on the MAP-IT (Mobilize, Assess, Plan, Implement and Track) framework.
Okanagan Charter: An International Charter for Health Promoting Universities and Colleges 2015
This document resulted from the 2015 International Conference on Health Promoting Universities and Colleges in British Columbia, Canada. It built on prior work including the 1986 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion and the 2005 Edmonton Charter for Health Promoting Universities and IHEs.
Highlights from the document
The Okanagan Charter set out “a transformative vision for health promoting universities & colleges.”
Shared aspirations:
Operationalizes an ecological approach
Policy and systems changes are key
“Health promoting universities and colleges infuse health into everyday operations, business practices and academic mandates. By doing so, health promoting universities and colleges enhance the success of our institutions; create campus cultures of compassion, well-being, equity and social justice; improve the health of the people who live, learn, work, play and love on our campuses; and strengthen the ecological, social and economic sustainability of our communities and wider society.”
Themes carried forward from prior work
Health is holistic, reflecting physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Health promotion requires a positive, proactive approach, moving beyond a focus on individual behavior towards a wide range of social and environmental interventions that create and enhance health in settings, organizations and systems, and address health determinants.
Collaborative and multi-sectoral effort are essential.
Health promotion must take an explicit stance in favor of equity, social justice, and sustainability.
Key principles for action
Use settings and whole system approaches
Ensure comprehensive and campus-wide approaches
Use participatory approaches and engage the voice of students and others
Develop trans-disciplinary collaborations and cross-sector partnerships
Promote research, innovation and evidence-informed action
Build on strengths
Value local and indigenous communities’ contexts and priorities
Act on an existing universal responsibility
An Action Framework for Higher Education Institutions
Embed health into all aspects of campus culture, across the administration, operations and academic mandates
Embed health in all campus policies.
Create supportive campus environments
Generate thriving communities and a culture of well-being
Support personal development
Create or re-orient campus services
An action framework for higher education institutions
Integrate health, well-being and sustainability in multiple disciplines to develop change agents
Advance research, teaching and training for health promotion knowledge and action
Lead and partner towards local and global action for health promotion
Standards of Practice for Health Promotion in Higher Education—American College Health Association 2012
“At its core, health promotion works to prevent the development of personal and campus population-level health problems, while enhancing individual, group and institutional health and safety. Although prevention efforts may be universal, selective, or indicated (Gordon, 1983), health promotion in higher education emphasizes creating supportive environments for health.
This principle furthers the recognition of IHEs as communities and indicates a re-orientation to focus primarily on population-level initiatives.” “Health promotion…“is done in alignment with the missions and values of institutions of higher education.”