Understanding the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion Logo

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion Logo

• The outer circle, originally in red, represents the goal of "Building Healthy Public Policies" and symbolizes the need for policies to "hold things together".

The Three Wings and Key Action Areas

• The three wings within the circle represent the need to address all five key action areas of health promotion in an integrated and complementary manner.

The Three Basic Strategies for Health Promotion

• The round spot within the circle represents the three basic strategies for health promotion: enabling, mediating, and advocacy.

Enabling Strategy

• Enabling means taking action in partnership with individuals or communities to facilitate greater empowerment.
• Enabling involves the mobilization of community and material resources to promote and protect health.

Mediating Strategy

• Mediating is a process that reconciles different interests (personal, social, economic) of individuals and communities, and different sectors (public, non-profit, and private).
• Mediating promotes and protects health by reconciling these different interests.

Advocacy Strategy

• Advocacy is a combination of individual and social actions designed to gain political commitment, policy support, social acceptance, and systems support for a particular health goal or program.