The World Health Organization Can Play a Leading Role in Changing the Culture of Nations into the Health Culture

Letter to Editor

Austin Public Health. 2024; 8(4): 1024.

The World Health Organization Can Play a Leading Role in Changing the Culture of Nations into the Health Culture

Hamid Moghaddasi*

Professor of Health information Management & Medical Informatics, Department of Health Information Technology, College of Paramedical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Iran

*Corresponding author: Hamid Moghaddasi, Professor of Health information Management & Medical Informatics, Department of Health Information Technology, College of Paramedical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Email: moghaddasi@sbmu.ac.ir

Received: September 23, 2024 Accepted: October 11, 2024 Published: October 18, 2024

Letter to Editor

Culture is a set of beliefs, customs, traditions and behaviors of a group of people with a clear demarcation as a country focusing on biological elements that are affected by various historical, geographical, political, economic, social and technological factors. Culture is flexible and its potential for change is a characteristic that, though causing the diversity of cultural values, is considered a promising factor for providing the possibility of modifying the existing norms and values in pursuit of a better social life [1,2]. The view that health culture is a subset of culture, though widely popular, is utterly incorrect because if health rules are promoted and institutionalized in the culture of a society, that culture could then be a health culture. Hence, the culture of all societies has the ability to reach a certain level of development owing to its inherent potential for changes like the gradual absorption and incorporation of health rules in shaping a health culture. To this end, the noticeable point is that the health cultivation is defined as the process of injecting health rules into the culture of various societies in order to improve people’s mental, physical, behavioral and ethical health. The World Health Organization (WHO) is the flagship and pioneer in promoting the health culture in different countries worldwide with the cooperation of health organizations, education systems, and the media while providing the means to achieve health justice and promote a healthy lifestyle for the people universally. This way, the public and private decision-making policies are guided judiciously thank to the promotion of healthy communities, enabling the individual members to make better decisions in line with a healthy lifestyle. As such, it seems logical to claim that the health culture is an invaluable asset that could effectively transform the social, economic and scientific features, and lay the foundation for a healthy lifestyle with peace and tranquility for all [2-4]. By implementing the “Pond to Lake” model, Figure 1 below, we can facilitate, accelerate and objectify the developmental process of a health culture and make sure of its full (100%) coverage in our target societies.

In this model, the family is referred to as a pond that, under the supervision of the health network, and in cooperation with the welfare organization, social workers, and the country's judiciary, is in charge of raising children till their school age. In the meantime, the health network, an important body in of the Ministry of Health, oversees the process of injecting health rules into the culture of families.

Also, the school here serves as a swimming pool that under the planned supervision of the Ministry of Health and through the education system, benefiting from the effective cooperation of teachers who are in fact ambassadors of health culture, can play a significant role in meeting the intended heath objectives at this particular phase. Additionally, the media with the informative and illuminating role that they can undertake would do a lot by duly addressing the minors and the teenagers of the society. The output of the pools are healthy citizens, with a sense of responsibility and critical thinking, and capable of effectively solving problems with a balanced spirit. People under such instruction would enter and work in the larger society, including universities and other productive organizations, which function as a lake. The presence of these citizens with a health culture, along with the activities of the national media that provide the necessary education under the supervision of the Ministry of Health, will additionally introduce the health culture to those who did not find the opportunity to benefit from such models. Cultivation of health is a very effective factor in spreading health justice, promoting a healthy lifestyle and reducing the influence of numerous unsolicited ideologies on people's behavior. The implementation of this process will promote the health culture and create a very deep and broad interface between all the existing cultures of the world. Here there will be worldwide unity in an enhanced health culture, but diversity in other socio-cultural features like eating habits, clothing, social relations and marriage follow their unique rules, exercised in each particular society. By focusing on its important role as the flag bearer of health culture in cooperation with the health organizations of countries, the WHO can take effective steps in improving the health culture of different societies to improve the lifestyle of the people worldwide in order to achieve health justice which could pave the way for peace and tranquility [5-8].

References

  1. Borysovyc Melnyk Yuriy, Sergiivna Pypenko Iryna. Concept “Health Culture” in System of Categories “Culture” and “Health”. International Journal of Education and Science. 2019: 2.
  2. WHO. Cultural Contexts of Health and Well-being, No.1. First meeting of the expert group, Copenhagen, Denmark. 2015: 15–16.
  3. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Building a National Culture of Health: BACKGROUND, ACTION FRAMEWORK, MEASURES, AND NEXT STEPS. 2016.
  4. Plough L Alonzo. Building a Culture of Health: A Critical Role for Public Health Services and Systems Research. American Journal of Public Health. 2015; 105: S150-S152.
  5. Chen B Adam. Many Forms of Culture. American Psychological Association. 2009; 64: 194–204.
  6. Lin Cong. Understanding Cultural Diversity and Diverse Identities. Springer Nature Switzerland AG. 2019: 1-10.
  7. Plough L Alonzo. Building a Health culture Challenges for the Public Health Workforce. Am J Prev Med. 2014; 47: S388–S390.
  8. Moghaddasi Hamid. Health Equity and Healthy Lifestyle in the Light of Promoting Health culture: Letter to Editor. AMS: Culture and health promotion journal. 2022; 6: 305-306.

Citation: Moghaddasi H. The World Health Organization Can Play a Leading Role in Changing the Culture of Nations into the Health Culture. Austin Public Health. 2024; 8(4): 1024.