Ottawa Charter action areas for QCE Health Unit 3
“Explain and apply the five action areas of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion to build resilience as a community resource for a priority health issue”
The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (WHO, 1986) sets out five action areas: build healthy public policy, create supportive environments, strengthen community action, develop personal skills, and reorient health services. In Unit 3 you apply them to a priority issue to build resilience as a community resource. The action areas are most effective when combined, so strong responses show two or three reinforcing each other rather than treating them as a checklist, and use the Charter to evaluate which areas an existing program covers or neglects.
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What this dot point is asking
QCAA wants you to know the five action areas of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion cold and apply them to a real community issue. The Ottawa Charter is the central health-promotion framework across the course. In Unit 3 you use it to design or evaluate action that builds resilience as a community resource. "Apply" means you must take a specific priority issue and explain what action under each relevant area would look like, not just define the areas. The strongest responses show that the action areas work together rather than as a checklist.
The answer
Where the Ottawa Charter comes from
The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion was produced by the World Health Organization in 1986. It shifted health promotion away from simply telling people to behave and toward changing the conditions that shape health. It defines health promotion as the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health. That framing fits Unit 3 perfectly, because building resilience as a community resource is exactly about increasing a community's control over its own health.
The five action areas
- 1. Build healthy public policy
- Health is shaped by decisions made well outside the health sector. Laws, regulations, taxes and organisational policy create the conditions for health. Examples include mandatory seatbelt and helmet laws, graduated licensing for young drivers, and social housing policy. Policy is powerful because it changes the default for everyone at once.
- 2. Create supportive environments
- The physical and social environment should make the healthy choice the easy choice. Safer road design, separated bike lanes, accessible crisis accommodation, and welcoming community spaces all create environments that support resilience.
- 3. Strengthen community action
- Communities identify their own priorities and act on them. This is empowerment from the ground up: local groups, peer networks and community organisations mobilising resources. It is the action area most directly tied to building resilience as a community resource.
- 4. Develop personal skills
- Education and skill-building help people make informed decisions and cope with challenges. This includes hazard-perception training for new drivers, financial literacy for people at risk of homelessness, and help-seeking skills for managing anxiety.
- 5. Reorient health services
- Health services move beyond treatment toward prevention, early intervention and community partnership. Examples include outreach health services for people experiencing homelessness and culturally safe services co-designed with the community.
Why the action areas work together
The big-mark idea is integration. A single action area rarely shifts a population issue on its own. Reducing young-driver road trauma takes policy (graduated licensing), supportive environments (safer roads), community action (local campaigns), personal skills (hazard-perception training) and reoriented services (school-based programs) acting together. When you apply the Charter to a priority issue, show how two or three areas reinforce each other, because that combined effect is what builds durable community resilience.
The five Ottawa Charter action areas are: build healthy public policy, create supportive environments, strengthen community action, develop personal skills, and reorient health services. They were set out by the World Health Organization in 1986 and are designed to work together, not in isolation.
Identify the program and the issue
A community runs a single road-safety awareness poster aimed at young drivers. The task is to evaluate it against the Charter and propose a stronger, integrated strategy.
Map the program onto the action areas
The poster touches only develop personal skills, and weakly, because it raises awareness without building decision-making or hazard-perception skill. It ignores policy, environment, community action and reoriented services.
Diagnose the weakness
Because a single action area rarely shifts a population issue, this program is unlikely to reduce young-driver trauma and would sit in a low criteria band. Naming the neglected areas is the evaluative move.
Propose an integrated strategy
Add graduated licensing (policy), safer road design (environment), a local young-driver campaign (community action), hazard-perception training (personal skills) and school-based services (reorient services), then explain how two or three reinforce each other, for example safer roads plus trained drivers, to build durable community resilience.
Applying the Charter in Unit 3
Use the Charter as a planning and evaluation tool. To plan: take your priority issue, work through each action area, and identify realistic action. To evaluate: judge an existing program by which action areas it covers and which it neglects. A program that only develops personal skills (such as a lone awareness poster) is weak because it ignores policy and environment. This evaluative use of the Charter is high-value in the IA1 action research and the examinations.
- Defining the areas without applying them
- "Apply" needs a specific issue and concrete action under each relevant area. Definitions alone sit in the lower band.
- Treating the areas as a checklist
- Marks come from showing the areas reinforce one another for a chosen issue, not from listing all five.
- Confusing the action areas with the determinants of health
- The determinants describe causes; the Ottawa Charter describes the action you take in response. Keep the two frameworks distinct.
Exam-style questions
Questions in the style of QCAA exam questions on this dot point, each with a worked answer. They are written by ExamExplained unless tagged "Past paper"; the year shows the paper a question is modelled on.
Practice6 marksExplain the five action areas of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion and apply two of them to a chosen priority health issue.Show worked answer →
Six marks: the five areas explained, then two applied to one issue.
The five areas (3 marks). Build healthy public policy; create supportive environments; strengthen community action; develop personal skills; reorient health services.
Apply two (3 marks). For young-driver road safety: build healthy public policy could mean graduated licensing; create supportive environments could mean safer road design and separated bike lanes. Each application names concrete action for the chosen issue.
Markers reward all five areas correctly explained and two genuinely applied to a specific issue, not just defined.
Practice7 marksA road-safety program for young drivers consists only of an awareness poster. Evaluate this program against the Ottawa Charter and propose an integrated strategy that builds community resilience.Show worked answer →
Seven marks: the evaluation, then an integrated proposal.
Evaluate (3 marks). The poster covers only develop personal skills (and weakly), neglecting policy, environment, community action and reoriented services, so it is unlikely to shift the population issue and sits in a low band.
Propose integration (4 marks). Add graduated licensing (policy), safer road design (environment), a local young-driver campaign (community action), hazard-perception training (personal skills) and school-based services (reorient services), and explain how two or three reinforce each other to build durable resilience.
Markers reward identifying the single-area weakness and proposing an integrated strategy where the action areas amplify one another.