Prevention and Health Promotion in Occupational Therapy: From Concepts to Interventions

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the role of occupational therapists as health and wellness promoters. Although occupational therapists more typically offer preventive services to individuals or groups presenting with specific risks or disabilities in their clinical practice, they may also play a broader role in promoting the health and wellness of groups, communities, and whole populations by developing and implementing interventions designed for people without any specific health problems or disabilities. They may also impact people’s health and well-being (either with or without health problems) on a wider spectrum via interventions aimed at the five targets of the ecological approach to health promotion. This approach is based on a holistic perspective of health and its determinants. It provides a useful framework for understanding the scope of targets and strategies that occupational therapists can use to prevent diseases and injuries and to promote the health of individuals, groups, communities, and populations. By an increased understanding on how health is influenced not only by individual characteristics and behaviors, but also by the physical, social, cultural, and political characteristics of the environment in which people live, work, play, and interact, occupational therapists can certainly play a meaningful role in health promotion.