Health promotion and COVID-19｜Department of Community and Global Health, The University of Tokyo
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Health promotion and COVID-19

A number of articles are available regarding the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. However, articles are scarce regarding health promotion for COVID-19. Is health promotion useless for COVID-19?

No. Health promotion has played an improtant role under the expansion of infectious diseases. According to Dr. Glenn Laverack, who is a globally renowned health promotion expert and served as Community Engagement Coordinatior in UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response from 2014 to 2016,

The goal of health promotion in disease outbreaks and health emergencies is to involve and enable people to gain more control to have healthier and safer lives.

(Laverack G. Health promotion in disease outbreaks and health emergencies. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2018. p.2.)

Ten things we must do better in health promotion during the COVID-19 outbreak

What are the roles of health promotion during the outbreak of COVID-19? Dr. Laverack lists 10 points that we can do as follows:

For details, please see the following PDF file:
https://www.ich.m.u-tokyo.ac.jp/content/files/covid-19/10_things_we_must_do_RRCJLS.pdf

We must better protect frontline workers.

We must better shield vulnerable people in society.

We must better use social science to understand the complexity of societies.

We must better respect the culture and needs of communities.

We must better work with communities in slum settings.

We must better strengthen social networks to support communities.

We must better support the mobilization of volunteers to help other people.

We must better use our common sense and not rely on weak “evidence”.

We must better support non-COVID19 health promotion issues.

We must better involve communities in the COVID19 outbreak response.

This article has been posted in Outbreak News Today.

Living with COVID-19 depends on working with communities

COVID-19 is here to stay, it is endemic, and we can expect recurrent, possibly seasonal, outbreaks. The causes of death related to population control measures, such as the low uptake of services, increased stress and physical inactivity, may exceed COVID-19 deaths. Population control measures in the future will be difficult to justify. Effective community engagement combined with new clinical and home care protocols, shielding of the vulnerable and the localised use of testing, contact tracing and lockdowns could allow daily life to resume.

For details, please see the following PDF file:
https://www.ich.m.u-tokyo.ac.jp/content/files/covid-19/the_future_RRCJLS.pdf