What is Health Advocacy?
Health Advocacy encompasses a wide range of professional activities with the goal of improving health and enhancing the effectiveness and responsiveness of the health care system. Advocates can work one-to-one assisting individuals in their encounters with the health care system, or at the system or policy level, affecting positive change in the health care system.
Health advocacy is another strategy of health promotion and may be taken on by and/or on behalf of individuals to create living conditions conducive to health and the achievement of healthy lifestyles. Advocacy includes a combination of individual and social actions aimed to gain political and policy support and social acceptance for a particular health goal. *definitions adapted from the World Health Organization’s Health Promotion Glossary www.WHO/HPR/HEP/98.1 Where to find us Bohn Hall Grants and Research Informational Brochures Health Resources Safer Sex Supplies Hours*: Monday – Friday 8:30– 4:30 Drop In Center (the little cottage between the Student Center and College Hall).
What is a Health Advocate? Health advocates are people that support and promote the rights of the patient in the health care arena and the community at large.* Their activities can take a number of different forms, such as improving healthcare access for individuals and families through direct patient care, working with legislators to develop effective health policies, and empowering communities to take action about health-related issues through outreach and education. At a fundamental level, being a health advocate means understanding the relationship between human rights and health disparities. This relationship is crucial for bringing about change to the healthcare system, as it establishes a direct link between key cultural, economic, social issues and the health and wellbeing of all people.
What is advocacy and why should I care? Health advocacy can happen on a personal level–knowing what your health needs are and meeting them adequately–or on a societal level. The government’s role in health care is enormous–from setting staffing levels at hospitals and nursing homes, licensing doctors and nurses, funding community health clinics, monitoring ambulance services, oversight of HMOs, putting fluoride in the water, to spraying for mosquitoes for West Nile Virus. Health care policy is shaped through a combination of laws, rulings and regulations in governmental arenas at the local, state and federal level. You can influence health policy issues. How?
