Empowerment, Health, and Professional Practice

There is a theoretical and practical relationship between empowerment, health and professional practice. People that have less financial and social protection suffer more health inequalities and worse physical and mental health outcomes. Changing the political, social and economic circumstances that impact people’s lives, health and well-being involves both individual and collective action and enabling people to empower themselves to have an influence can be facilitated through professional practice. This begins with the perspective to look for, and work from, areas in peoples’ lives in which they have control and to use this as an asset to change the influences on their lives and on the lives of others. A simple transfer of resources and information by health practitioners is insufficient to achieve empowerment and must involve capacity building to develop competencies, a reflexive practice, a critical awareness and a commitment to work together to find effective solutions. In this chapter, an introduction to the key concepts will include health, empowerment, power, powerlessness, community engagement and co-production. How health is interpreted and the use of language can influence professional practice including the top-down and bottom-up design of health programs. Empowerment and activism are closely connected, and their relationship in professional practice to enable people to have greater influence will also be explained. The chapter is contextualized with international case studies of empowering approaches in everyday health practice.