Ottawa Charter - 25th anniversary commemoration

With the birth of the Ottawa Charter 25 years ago, a milestone was reached in the history of public health which provided a breakthrough for the way we deal with health issues today. The upcoming Regional Committee in Baku will commemorate the 25th birthday of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. In connection with this, WHO EURO is collecting documentation, photos, and memories of the event itself as well as its impact further on. This forum is set up for you to share any materials you may have (list of participants, photos, papers, etc.).  including sending us the e-mail addresses for early health promoters, Ottawa participants, etc.

 

Please engage in the exchange.


Read the Ottawa Charter on the WHO/Europe web site

 

List of Ottawa conference participants (1986) - PDF (2 MB)

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Permalink Reply by Ilona Kickbusch on July 15, 2011 at 10:52

As the person intially responsible for the Ottawa Charter activities in the WHO I am delighted by this activity of the Regional Office for Europe. I look forward to an active exchange! Ilona Kickbusch

Permalink Reply by Sheng Zhang on July 31, 2011 at 0:09

It will become the Mecca of Public Health of the World, I have long be respecting to the Ottawa Charter, so pay salutation to you and your collegure.

Permalink Reply by Gauden Galea on July 15, 2011 at 17:05

There will be a commemoration session on the 25th Anniversary of Ottawa in the Regional Committee Meeting in September 2011. Through this site we would like to get as many of the people involved in the development of health promotion to pass on a short message, memories, and lessons learned. We would like the younger generation, inspired by Ottawa to say how it has made a difference for them. We will launch other activities as time goes by, but here's looking forward to everyone's contributions.

 

If you are not logged in to the WHO network, the link above may not work and instead the Ottawa Charter may be accessed here, or through the HQ page.

 

As one who started my career in the Ottawa Conference, as the first international meeting that I attended, it is a landmark in my own career and I am happy to see this inspirational milestone being commemorated. I look forward to your contributions here over the coming days to weeks.

Permalink Reply by WHO/Europe on July 15, 2011 at 18:10
The link is now corrected. Sorry for the error and inconvenience.
Permalink Reply by Cristian Avalos Jonhston on July 31, 2011 at 12:56

How important it is for the world to overturn the eyes effectively to the promotion of health. Never be enough effort to devote to it as public health professionals for the welfare of the people and the most vulnerable. Celebrate this anniversary by asking ourselves that we need to do locally

Cristian Avalos Jonhston MD, Public Health professional

Permalink Reply by Mary Stewart Burgher on August 3, 2011 at 10:05
As a very small measure of the Charter's impact, I can remember that, before the Conference, translators said the term health promotion didn't exist in and couldn't be translated into other languages, such as Russian. That's certainly not true now.
Permalink Reply by Kökény Mihály on August 4, 2011 at 6:53

Dear Friends,

I am happy that WHO/EURO has proudly gone ahead with the legacy of Ottawa in times of drafting a new European health policy (Health2020).

Let me share some of my anniversary thoughts as a member of the then steering group and one of the participants of the conference.

Who would have thought 25 years ago that the health promotion race would haver run so long?  Accross the world  now there are government health promotion strategies, foundations, journals and university departments.  One can say without exaggeration that although the document was much ahead of its time, the fortunate combination of social determinants approach and a commitment to community actions, created a unique breakthrough in public health or as Breslow stated, the beginning of a public health revolution.

While the key messages of this historical paper have not lost their timeliness, health promotion decreased in radicalism, its clash with the overmedicalized model of prevention and  healing is no more observed. A sober conciliation of the medical discourse and the empowerment  approaches  was pressed forward by evidence-based health technology progress and a strong need for alliance building in health policy. Political expectations also contributed to the recognition of long untapped, last area of the Ottawa Charter: the reorientation of health services to better address communities became a crucial part of health system reforms.

WHO organized 7 global conferences on health promotion so far: all have reinforced what had been put down in Ottawa. However, the balance of the original areas rolled over, policy parts became dominant, probably that is why the last major document/The Nairobi Call to Action,2009/ urged the repositioning of health promotion with more emphasis on local capacity building.

In Hungary Ottawa conference had an immediate impact much before the political changes: by elaborating the first national public health strategy, a document which had never been drafted earlier in Central and Eastern Europe. Institutional frameworks as well as a state health promotion fund was established by 1988 and Hungary joined to many of the setting networks. Unfortunately a year later the massive political transition swept away all of these and in the early nineties my country turned back to the all models, but the spirit remained alive and in the last 20 years there were a lot of initiatives, of course, ups and downs in health promotion...

I was and will always be committed to the Ottawa spirit in my public health activities.

Mihály Kökény

Hungary

Permalink Reply by Joan R Villalbi on August 4, 2011 at 13:33
As a participant in the Conference, which shaped a lot my way of thinking and working, I'm delighted that this is happening. The beat goes on!
Permalink Reply by Helle Møller on August 10, 2011 at 17:20
I have placed some photos from the conference here:
Helle
Permalink Reply by Kökény Mihály on August 10, 2011 at 18:38

This is great. Thank you, Helle.

Other colleagues are more than welcome to do the same.

Mihály

Permalink Reply by Tina Kiær on August 12, 2011 at 15:03

We have now activated a photo album where participants easily can upload their pictures. Just click on the PHOTOS tab on the top bar of this page. Looking forward to see more faces of old friends!

Tina

Permalink Reply by WHO/Europe on August 16, 2011 at 14:41
Here is the original list of participants of the Ottawa conference in 1986, courtesy and thanks to Hans Saan.
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