Review: The barriers and challenges to health promotion in Africa.

Abstract

Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over and to improve their health so as to reach a state of complete physical, mental and social well being. The World Health Organisation which was created in 1948, where some 190 countries exchange their knowledge and experience with the aim of making possible the attainment by all citizens of the world a level of health that will permit them to lead a socially and economically productive life. Unfortunately Africa is riddled with corruption, debt, conflicts, wars, rape, child soldiers, HIV/AIDS, land mines, unemployment and the list is endless; which are formidable barriers and challenges to health promotion. (SA Fam Pract 2005;47(10): 39-42)