Health programs are organized efforts that support people to increase control over, and improve, their health. They address a wide range of issues including establishing healthy public policies, creating supportive environments, and strengthening community action and personal skills.
While healthcare workers often use a broad range of strategies to promote health, there are six core areas that help ensure their success: innovation to develop the evidence base for action; a rigorously established technical package consisting of a limited number of high-priority, evidence-based interventions that together will have a large impact; effective performance management, especially through rigorous real-time monitoring, evaluation, and improvement; communication to influence behavior change and engage civil society; and political commitment to obtain resources and support. Programs such as smallpox eradication, tuberculosis control, smoking cessation, and polio eradication have succeeded because they addressed all of these elements.
A health program is any activity that contributes to improving the health and wellbeing of a population. It can be a single event or it may span multiple years and involve a number of different activities and groups. A health program can be government-funded or private-sector funded and can be aimed at preventing illness, promoting good health, managing disease, reducing disability or death from injury, and ensuring a safe environment. It can also be aimed at developing, supporting or expanding access to healthcare services, social support networks and educational opportunities.
To succeed, a health program needs to be driven by strong leadership and a clear vision for the desired outcomes. It also needs to be based on sound analysis of the risk factors that contribute to poor health and a well-defined strategy for addressing them. The program should be designed with the aim of maximizing the benefits for everyone in a community. This approach reduces the need to rely on expensive emergency interventions, which can divert scarce resources from other essential needs and also improves the sustainability of long-term investments in prevention.
A health program can be aimed at a particular population or sector, such as an urban neighborhood, a workplace, a school, a state or a country. It can focus on disease prevention or health promotion, or it can address the determinants of health, such as economic and cultural conditions that influence modifiable risk behaviors like unhealthy eating habits or physical inactivity. For example, a student-run program in South Los Angeles encouraged corner-store owners to display fresh fruits and vegetables instead of chips and candy, which reduced obesity rates among residents. A health program can also be targeted at specific health needs, such as maternity care or mental health. For example, a mental health program could target children in elementary school who have been exposed to domestic violence. It could provide training and workshops for parents, teachers and community members to better respond to signs of a child struggling emotionally. It could also include family planning services and counseling for victims of sexual abuse.