4288.0: Tuesday, October 23, 2001: 4:30 PM-6:00 PM | ||||
Oral Session | ||||
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| The Healthy and supportive environment initiatives are effective srategies that contribute to improving the quality of life in many municipalities and communities throughout the Americas. In the current context of decentralization and greater demands for democratic processes, it contributes to strengthening capacity at the local level. Municipalities, communities and schools are involved in doing a needs assessment, identifying their own priorities and determining the most effective mix of strategies to address them. Relevant stakeholders are involved in developing local plans of action to address the priorities. This process builds consensus with all concerned stakeholders within communities, including families, comunity and governmental leaders, teachers, health and education sectors, food and agriculture sectors, and mobilizing resources to address the needs identified. Local authorities and community leaders implement health promotion strategies with a life cycle and gender approach to strengthen protective factors in their communities, including the development of personal life skills to facilitate the acquisition and maintenance of healthy spaces. PAHO technical collaboration with and among the Member Countries contributes to strengthening social participation in establishing healthy public policies, creating healthy and supportive environments, and improving the quality of life. Despite the evidence of health promotion effectiveness, few countries in the region have considered it as an important investment and an essential element for social and economic development, and few have destined adequate resources to this essential public health strategy. This panel will present a selected group of experiences and discuss characteristics of good practices in the context of the Americas: | ||||
| See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement. | ||||
| Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participants will be able to: (1) Describe Local Participatory Planning, how are various sectors and community groups involved; (2) Understand strategies to increase participation of community groups (civil society) and improve capacity in presenting priorities and projects for negotaition; (3) Understand the evaluation framework and experience; and (4)Describe experiences with healthy public policies: adolescents, mental health, smoke free spaces. | ||||
| Maria Teresa Cerqueira, PhD | ||||
| Promoting health through smoke free environment Armando Peruga, Heather Selin | ||||
| Youth participation and adolescents programs in healthy municipalities: a case study Matilde Maddaleno | ||||
| Healthy Municipalities Movement and the Health-Promoting Schools Initiative in the Americas: The Case of Nocaima Josefa Ippolito-Shepherd, PhD, Ricardo Alvarado, MD, MPH, Maria Teresa Cerqueira, PhD | ||||
| Mental Health Promotion in Latin America and the Caribbean José Miguel Caldas de Almeida, MD, PhD, Claudio T. Miranda, MD, PhD | ||||
| Sponsor: | International Health | |||
| Cosponsors: | Latino Caucus; Public Health Student Caucus; Social Work; Socialist Caucus | |||
| CE Credits: | CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work | |||