I'm interested in hearing what people on CLICK4HP might think of the
Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion.

Reading through the UN new release raises a few questions to me:
Will it provide useful health promotion strategies "to address
inequalities and be more relevant to the demands of the new millenium"? Or
is it contributing to inequalities?  That's what the unknown author
indicates below in a message posted originally on <pha-exchange>.
Many health promoters may agree that health promotion, based on addressig
the determinants of health, is, and should be, a "focus of community and
civil society actions", but there are troubling implications of partnering
with the private sector that health promotion be part of "good corporate
practice". A good idea - but let's be clear on how that happens.

What are your thoughts?  Below are some reactions from another list.

Alison Stirling, co-facilitator, CLICK4HP

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[SDOH] Bangkok Charter: Vote for rejection and why

From the Social Determinants of Health listserv, a few points taken from
an unsigned posting (as there is no attribution, I'm not forwarding the
whole message, but it is available on SDOH archives at
http://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html from August 14th)

FROM "pha-exchange" <[log in to unmask]>
Some very thoughtful comments. - Dennis Raphael, Social Determinants of
Health Listserv (SDOH)
-------------------------------------------------------

I would recommend PHM [People's Health Movement] not endorsing this
charter. Among dozens of points I will just highlight three:

1. The repeated references to the private sector as "critical to the
achievement of health" or as a vital "partner" in health promotion.

Interactions with the private sector are important of course but they take
place only under the authority of the sovereign (the people) through their
elected representatives and this would include consultation to obtain
needed information, certain expertise or to discuss provision of services
or goods to be delivered etc etc. Never in the formulation of policy.

2. The reversal of public health logic and history "Health determines
socioeconomic and political development". It simply does not! And this
position is promoted in order to avoid addressing structural poverty,
inequality and violence which are the direct causes of suffering on earth.

The relationship between health and poverty is two way but it is not
symmetric. Poverty is the single most important determinant of poor
health. But poor health is very far from being the single most important
determinant of poverty. Poor health exacerbates existing poverty. Both the
vicious cycle and the 'virtuous' cycle of health and poverty are
misleading images, as they imply equal weight of the two poles of health
and economic development.

3. Completely absent from the analysis are actors, causes and clashes of
interests: this text, is "apolitical", ahistorical and amoral. The time
has come for honest political brokering in which we state our moral values
and
principles upfront and the political action required to work towards that
moral vision.
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