About the
Health Promotion
& Education Unit
HPE provides national leadership, strategic direction and technical guidance for initiatives that help people gain greater control over their health and make healthier choices in the settings of everyday life.
Who we are
The Health Promotion & Education Unit is part of the Ministry of Health & Wellness' Health Promotion and Protection Branch. The Unit supports national health-promotion and education initiatives and works with government agencies, the Regional Health Authorities, civil society, private-sector organisations, schools, communities and other partners to improve health knowledge, shape healthier environments and support positive behaviour change.
HPE's work goes beyond telling people what is healthy. Effective health promotion also considers the environments, systems, policies and social conditions that make healthy choices easier or harder. This is why the Unit works across multiple settings and sectors, combining public education with programme development, community action, partnerships, capacity building and evidence-informed behaviour-change approaches.
What we do
- Provide strategic direction and technical guidance for national health-promotion and education initiatives.
- Develop and support programmes that encourage healthier behaviours and reduce preventable health risks.
- Design and support public education and behaviour-change interventions for priority health issues.
- Strengthen health promotion in schools, workplaces, communities, health facilities and other everyday settings.
- Build the capacity of health workers, wellness coordinators, educators, community leaders and other partners.
- Support the development, review and distribution of health education and information materials.
- Use research, monitoring and evaluation to improve health-promotion programmes and communication approaches.
- Work across sectors to help create supportive environments for health and wellness.
Health in everyday settings
Our approach
Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health. In practice, this means helping people build knowledge and skills while also strengthening community action, creating supportive environments, informing healthy public policy and improving the way health services support prevention and wellness.
The approach recognises that health is created in everyday life: where people live, learn, work, play, worship and connect. HPE therefore works through settings and partnerships rather than relying on information campaigns alone.
How we work
- Settings-based action: bringing health promotion into schools, workplaces, communities and health services.
- Partnerships: working with public, private, civil-society, faith-based, professional and community organisations.
- Behaviour change: using evidence and audience insight to move from awareness to practical action.
- Capacity building: equipping the people who influence health where Jamaicans live and work.
- Supportive environments: encouraging policies, spaces and systems that make healthy choices easier.
- Equity and inclusion: designing programmes so people of different ages, abilities and circumstances can participate.
- Monitoring and learning: using data and feedback to strengthen programme design and delivery.
Our priorities
HPE's health-promotion work supports the Ministry's wider wellness agenda and the prevention of disease across the life course. Priority areas reflected across HPE's current programme material include physical activity, healthy eating, NCD prevention and health screening, workplace wellness, healthy school environments, community wellness, tobacco-free environments, mental and social well-being, safer health behaviours and improved health literacy.
Our team
Meet the national HPE team and the health-promotion professionals who support implementation through the Regional Health Authorities and parish health services.
Our partners
Health promotion depends on collaboration. HPE works with partners across government, education, workplaces, civil society, communities, academia, professional groups and development organisations to extend the reach of health information, programmes and supportive environments.
