Self-care activities are an essential component of patient-centered health care systems. The World Health Organization defines self-care as “the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and to cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider.”…
Promoting empowerment as a process, governments and health systems can drastically facilitate the adoption of self-care practices. A few critical steps include: 1) making national commitments to improving health literacy; 2) allowing patients to access their own health records easily — ideally, in digital form — to increase their knowledge of their own health conditions and readily pull up details on diagnosis and treatment plans; and 3) including modules on health, hygiene, and first aid in public school curricula…more
