Health Promotion Practice and Challenges in Mozambique

Felipe Angst, Agnes Madziwa, Alexandre Lazzarotto

Abstract

Mozambique has adopted the concept of health promotion since the Declaration of Alma Ata in 1978. It is one of the countries that signed their commitment to health promotion during the Health Promotion Conference in Ottawa in 1986. The purpose of this article is to analyze the main assumptions of health promotion in Mozambique. The methodology consists of an integrative literature review, using academic journals from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Ministry of Health (MISAU), and the Pubmed, Hinari, Scielo and African Medical Journals databases. From the results obtained, it was found that the Ministry of Health of Mozambique, in partnership with other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), is implementing health promotion programs that aim to improve the quality of life of the population, through the creation of supportive environments, development of personal skills, construction of healthy public policies, reorientation of health services and community participation. It is concluded that Mozambique has been adopting principles of health promotion since 1978, but it faces several challenges that include the lack of trained professionals, financial and material resources, poor infrastructure and difficulties in translating documents written in English to the Portuguese language.