UAE HEALTH PROMOTION
STRATEGIC PLAN 2019-2023
Prepared By:
ID number:
Foundation of public health and health promotion
Under supervision of:
2019/2020
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References
References ....................................................................................................................................... 2
1. Background ................................................................................................................................. 4
1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 4
1.2 Current health situation in the UAE ...................................................................................... 5
1.3 Vision & Mission .................................................................................................................. 6
1.3.1 Vision.............................................................................................................................. 6
1.3.2 Mission ........................................................................................................................... 6
1.4 Goals and Objectives ............................................................................................................. 7
1.5 Scope ..................................................................................................................................... 7
1.6 Time frame ............................................................................................................................ 8
2. Guiding principles for health promotion..................................................................................... 8
3. Health promotion plan ................................................................................................................ 9
3.1 Framework for developing the health promotion plan .......................................................... 9
3.2 Potential partners ................................................................................................................. 10
3.3 Priority strategic areas ......................................................................................................... 10
3.3.1 Health first .................................................................................................................... 11
2
3.3.2 Promoting cardiovascular health by encouraging healthy practices and avoiding
harmful habits and enhancing the overall decision making process ..................................... 12
3.3.3 Building capacity .......................................................................................................... 14
3.3.4 Healthy settings ............................................................................................................ 16
3. Monitoring indicators................................................................................................................ 19
4. References ................................................................................................................................. 23
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1. Background
1.1 Introduction
In recent years, there was an undeniable dominance of cardiovascular
diseases (CVDs) as the leading cause of death around the world. In fact, back in
2005 the registered number of fatalities due to Cardio Vascular Diseases was 17.5
million, an astonishing increase from 14.4 million registered back in 1990, taking
into account all the technological and medical related advancement that has been
made ever since. In addition to that, the world health organization (WHO)
estimated that 30% of the annual, global fatalities each year are attributed to
CVDs. CVDs are group of defects of the heart and the blood vessels and it
includes; coronary heart diseases (defects affecting blood vessels that supplies the
heart), Cerebrovascular disease (defects affecting the blood vessels that supplies
the brain), heart attack and rheumatic heart disease among other multiple
conditions. The origin of CVDs is multifactorial as; age, sex, smoking, high blood
pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes have all been shown to contribute in escalating
the CVDs. However, four out of each five deaths resulted from CVDs are caused
by heart attacks and strokes, and almost one third of these deaths occur
prematurely (in people below 70 years old).
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Heart attack is an acute event mainly caused by an obstruction that is
preventing blood from flowing freely to and from the heart. The simplest
explanation for this to happen is the accumulation of a substance (example fatty
tissues can be nicotine as well) inside the inner walls of the major blood vessels
that supply the heart to the point that it caused a complete blockage. Common
symptoms of heart attack include but not limited to; pain in the center of the chest,
sweating, breathing difficulty, light headedness and fainting to name a few. The
most important behavioral risk factors of heart attacks are; unhealthy diet, lack of
physical activity, the consumption of tobacco based products, in addition to that,
the usages of alcohol can equally be devastating. The effects of these risk factors
may materialize as; high blood pressure, high blood glucose, high blood
cholesterol, as well as overweight and obesity.
1.2 Current health situation in the UAE
Since 1970, the United Arab Emirates has experienced a tremendous
transformation, in order for it to reach the place that it’s currently occupies among
the world best countries in terms of quality of life. However, this drastic
transformation has increased the risk factors associated with CVDs in general and
more specifically heart attacks, as obesity, smoking, hypertension and diabetes
among other, are all a well-known contributor to UAE inhabitants suffering and
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dying from heart attacks. Furthermore, the leading cause of death in the UAE are
CVDs. Moreover, a study published by “Emirates cardiac society” stated that
people in the UAE die of heart attack 20 years younger than the rest of the world,
(average of 45 years old, compared to the rest of the world 65 years old). On the
other hand, a study published by “Abu Dhabi health service” (SEHA) stated that
80% of the country’s population are in fact overweight, with 30% of them can be
considered obese. In addition to that, one in three Emirati have hypertension, more
than two hundred thousand Emirati have diabetes, and all of the previously
mentioned factors have been shown to be a high risk factors associated with
suffering and dying from heart attacks.
1.3 Vision & Mission
1.3.1 Vision
Healthier hearts for all UAE residents
1.3.2 Mission
To enhance the decision making ability of all UAE residents and enable
them to make healthy choices that will lead to reduction in mortalities resulted
from heart attack and ultimately eliminate them.
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1.4 Goals and Objectives
- Reduce the public exposure to major risk factors like tobacco usages,
unhealthy diet, and lack of exercises.
- Enhance inter agency cooperation’s in an attempt to address all the social
and economic factors that plays a role in people suffering from heart
attacks.
- Reduce the mortality caused by heart attacks.
- Reduce the risk of heart attacks.
- Encourage prevention of heart attacks.
- Increase involvement of all sectors as well as all members of the society
in promoting awareness about heart attack.
1.5 Scope
A heart attack is preventable, although current evidence suggests that of all
CVDs, heart attack register the largest contribution in terms of mortality than any
other type of CVDs. However, reducing the exposure to the escalating factors of
the disease such as: tobacco usages, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity can
reduce the mortality resulted from it.
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1.6 Time frame
The plan will be implemented over the course of 4 years (2019-2023).
2. Guiding principles for health promotion
The commitment to reduce cardio vascular diseases epidemic in the UAE
requires a long term and sustainable plan, one that not only engage all member of
the society but also make sure that each stake holder are completely invested in
making the plan work. The following are guiding principles for UAE health
promotion plan:
- Health promotion is the responsibility of all individuals, private
organizations and government agencies.
-
Local community and individual’s engagement are crucial to the
successful implementations of the plan.
- Address all underlying factors and determinants that contribute to heart
attack and the bad habits that the general public may unknowingly be
doing and that lead to them suffering from heart attack.
- Maintain the transparency and have a multiple lines of open
communications and listen to what people have to say
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3. Health promotion plan
Health promotion is the process of empowering people in order to enabling
them to improve their general health and increase their control over it. In other
words, make the necessary adjustments to improve the quality of the society’s
health. The following provide an overall view of UAE health promotion strategic
plan for 2019-2023. An annual budget as well as four years action plan and
evaluation plan will be developed to ensure that the strategic goals are being met.
3.1 Framework for developing the health promotion plan
The three most important roles of public health includes but not limited to:
assessment, policy development and assurance. Assessment refers to the
monitoring activities of the overall health status and needs of the country in order
to detect any patterns. After that, policy development work towards developing the
necessary policies in response to the current status and the country’s needs. And
finally the assurance refer to the country’s effort to providing the highest standards
of health services to all members of the society by a well trained staff and well
equipped medical organizations.
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3.2 Potential partners
In order to achieve success in the plan implementations, it requires
cooperation’s of all concerned parties. However, the UAE health agencies will be
the cornerstone for fulfilling the core objects of our plan, nevertheless, the roles
and responsibilities of private and voluntary organizations and individuals are also
very important and crucial to the success of our plan. Potential partners include but
not limited to:
- Privately owned health organizations (such as clinics) that is owned by
non-governmental entities.
- Non-health sector partners (representors from various areas such as
education, agriculture & food Production Company, media, etc.)
- The general public and representative of specific group or settings.
3.3 Priority strategic areas
The strategic framework for UAE health promotion plan to reduce morbidity
and mortality from cardio vascular disease and especially heart attack 2019-2023
contains the following elements:
- Health First
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- Promoting cardiovascular health by encouraging healthy practices and
avoiding harmful habits and enhancing the overall decision making
process.
- Building capacity
- Healthy settings (educational institutions)
3.3.1 Health first
It’s a holistic approach to all public policies across all sectors, which always
give the utmost priority to health consequence of the decision above everything
else, and always try to avoid any potential harmful practices that may jeopardize
the health of the population. This approach usually shaped by social, economic,
physical and environmental practices. Although, the ministry of health in the UAE
are the responsible entity for legislating and organizing these practices.
Nevertheless, it’s absolutely necessary to engage all other governmental entities as
well as private sector organization in the decision making process. To ensure that
these practices become within the core practices of all sectors and allocate the
necessary resources to ensure successful implementations of such practices.
3.3.1.1 Proposed actions
- Identify and seize any opportunity that presents itself to enhance
any and all health policies in all sectors.
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- Establish and maintain open line of communications between all
agencies to ensure swift compliance with the new policies
- Generate evidence that support the claim on the impact and
effectiveness of health first policies in order to get everybody
invested.
3.3.1.2 Target population
The entire community of the United Arab Emirates
3.3.1.3 Partners
All public sectors and private sectors health organizations
3.3.2 Promoting cardiovascular health by encouraging healthy practices
and avoiding harmful habits and enhancing the overall decision making
process
Reduce the level of exposure of the general populations to the factors that is
associated with CVDs like tobacco product consumption, unhealthy diet and lack
of physical activities. Meanwhile, encourage the general population to take and
make smarter and healthier decisions when it comes to their lifestyle choices.
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3.3.2.1 Proposed actions
3.3.2.1.1 Tobacco control
- Offer help to people who want to stop using tobacco products
- Warn people about the danger of tobacco products
- Raise tobacco products prices and taxes
- Raise the insurance fees for smokers
3.3.2.1.2 Promote healthy diet
- Enforce food establishments like restaurants to cut down the
usages of salt in their meals preparations.
- Eliminate the use of trans fat altogether and replace it with healthy
fat like olive oil
- Provide accurate and detailed information for consumers to
educate them on decision making when choosing and preparing
their food at home.
3.3.2.1.3 Promote physical activity
- Encourage sport day once a month in all organizations.
- Organize a nationwide weight losing competition to encourage
people to become physically active.
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- Encourage sporting events that the entire family can take part
participating in.
- Support and enhance the quality of sports programs at school and
other educational settings
3.3.2.2 Target population
The general population of the United Arab Emirates
3.3.2.3 Partners
All public sectors and private sectors related entities such as food industry,
sports clubs, etc.
3.3.3 Building capacity
There must be additional focus on developing sustainable skills, organizational
structures, resources and overall general commitment to health improvement in all
related sectors. With main focus on the following key areas:
 Health infrastructure like hospitals and other well-being organizations.
 Regular training programs for staff (like nurses)
 Self-sustainable programs.
 Enhance Problem solving ability and decision making process of the
organization
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3.3.3.1 Proposed action
 Implement the culture of partnership, collaboration, and multi-sectoral
actions towards healthy settings and approaches.
 Enable all entities and organizations at all levels to implement the
United Arab Emirates Health Promotion Strategic plan to reduce
morbidity and mortality from CVDs.
 Allocate
the
necessary
resources
to
enable
the
successful
implementations of the plan for all organizations
 Provide the right amount of supervision on the implementations of the
plan in these organizations.
3.3.3.2 Target population
All the public, private and semi-governmental organizations that is related to
the health sector in anyway.
3.3.3.3 Partners
All public sectors and private sectors and semi-governmental entities that
choose to implement the health promotional plan
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3.3.4 Healthy settings
The healthy settings approach is one of the most important aspects of any
health promotional plan. As it enable people to improve their work environment,
living, playing and learning environment while at the same time enable them to
make healthier choices. In our plan we are targeting the following settings: health
promoting
schools,
health
promoting
hospitals,
and
healthy
cities/towns/villages/workplaces.
3.3.4.1 Health promoting schools
Schools can play a major role in improving Cardio Vascular health
awareness and practices. However, current setting needs adjustments in order to
achieve the desired outcome. In fact, Studies have shown that receiving health
education from a very young age encourages children to adopt healthy behaviors
from a very young age and then they will grow up with that life style, and even
allow them to monitor their family and friend and suggest adjustments for their
respected lifestyles.
3.3.4.1.1 Proposed actions
 Implement the health promotion plan in schools and other educational
institutions.
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
Create a safe and supportive environment to allow the students and
the staff to maintain healthy habits, (eating healthy food, being
physically active) from a very young age
 Allow schools to have a health open day where the entire families of
the students can participate in.
3.3.4.1.2 Target population
All the students from all ages and the entire staff that work in schools
3.3.4.1.3 Partners
The entire educational sector (schools, institutions, universities, etc.).
3.3.4.2 Health promoting hospitals
It’s a new approach that represents a shift from hospitals image as health
service providers that usually providing treatments for patients. It’s a revolutionary
restructure of the entire organization. It’s a known fact that patient are more highly
to response positively when provided health advice while they are experiencing illhealth. Thus, hospitals can have a lasting influence on the behavior of patients,
more than just present them with the cure.
3.3.4.2.1 Proposed actions
 Implement this setting on all health care providers in the entire UAE
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3.3.4.2.2 Target population
The entire population that receives treatment in any medical establishment
within the UAE
3.3.4.2.2 Partners
All health care provider facilities and establishment anywhere in the UAE
3.3.4.3 Healthy cities/towns/villages/workplaces
It’s a simple approach based on the assumption approach based on the
assumption that everything within a community is connected and therefore in order
to achieve the optimum result of your plan you have to form a network where
everybody involved, where everybody contribute from its position. For example; in
order For a city to be considered as a health city, the focus needs to be on taking
care of all aspects that is related to people’s health, guaranteeing livability now and
into the future through creating healthy and sustainable environments through
planting trees, and ensuring healthy communities by making sure that everybody
fully understand and committed to the cause which is living healthy at large. A
healthy city is an ongoing work where you need to plan, execute, evaluate and then
correct.
3.3.4.3.1 Proposed actions
 Start from small communities scale to reach city wide initiative
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 Organize city wide events where neighborhood competes against each
other in sports, healthy eating and quitting smoking all of which
contributes to healthier hearts.
3.3.4.3.2 Target population
The entire UAE population
3.3.4.3.2 Partners
Every member of the community from any age group
3. Monitoring indicators
To ensure the sustainability of this health promotion plan and assure the long
term success of this program, there is a need for constant review, evaluation and
adjustments of the different aspects of the plan. For example we need to take into
account the demographic shift toward an increasingly aging society that will only
going to require more health services, therefore we need to make our plan dynamic
and easily subjected to any necessary adjustment or modifications. For this and
other reasons, it’s highly important to implement an evaluation process alongside
the health promotional plan; any successful plan must include the following
elements:
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 Comprehensive
yet
SMART
(Specific,
Measurable,
Achievable,
Realistic, and Time Bond) logical model of which will serve as the basis
of all plan related evaluation.
For this tool it is required to build a logical, sustainable and SMART model for
which the success of the plan will be ultimately judged upon (at the end of the
period). The model will demonstrate an ideal setting, one where the four
elements of the plan have been successfully and effectively implemented and
the expected results of that successfully implementation on the society as a
whole. At the end of the proposed period (the four years) there will be an
evaluation campaign that will compare the successful implementation of each
element of the plan against the model, this model will give us a chance to judge
the element separately and as a whole, as well as highlight the element that is
lacking and suggest a way to enhance it in order to achieve the successful
implementation of the plan as a whole, as well as allow us the chance to build
on this plan in the future.
 Short-term. Mid-term and long-term evaluations criteria’s.
For this tool we are require to set criteria’s and time frame to evaluate the
successful implementation of the plan short, medium and long terms. For short
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term evaluation (within the first 6 months of the plan initial implementation) we
will rely on the public perception of the plan and the degree of their
responsiveness and cooperation’s as the measuring criteria of the success of the
plan in the short term. For mid-term evaluation of the plan (after 2 years of the
plan implementation) we will rely on the degree of the general public change in
behaviors (including physical activity in their daily routine) and smarter
decision making (reduce salt and sugar intake in their daily diet) as the
measuring criteria of the success of the plan in the mid-term. As for the long
term (at the end of the plan proposed time frame) we will rely on reaching the
overall targets and change in status and statistics that is related to reduce the
number of people suffering from CVDs in the UAE and especially heart attacks
as the measuring criteria of the success of the plan in the long term.
 Key indicators and data system
In order to measure this tool, the first step is to identify the plan goals and
objectives (reduce the CVDs in UAE and especially heart attack for example),
then define indicators for tracking progress towards achieving those goals
(Number of trainings held with health providers, Percent of youth reached with
CVDs risk and management messages through the different media outlets).
After that it is time to decide on methods for gathering data and how
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often various data will be recorded to track indicator (surveys & in-depth
interviews). Once the data have been collected, someone will need to compile
and analyze it to fill in a results table for internal review and external reporting
(specialized committee)
 Procedure for evaluation
For this tool it is required to develop an evaluation plan which consist of the
following elements
- Clarify the plan objectives and goals so that it’s clear for all
stakeholders, the authorities and the general public.
- Developing evaluation survey so that the general public can
answer and the data collected of such survey can be analyzed and
interpreted and be used as feedback from the public on the plan.
- Setting up a timeline for all evaluation activities.
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4. References

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practical guide. H t t p: / / w w w. s a h e a l t h . s a . g o v. a u / w p s / w c m / c o n n e c
t /cb6fa18043aece9fb510fded1a914d95/HiAPBackgroundPracticalGuide-v2.
pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=cb6fa18043aece9fb510fded1a914d95. Accessed 29
Nov 2019

WHO. (1986). Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. Copenhagen: World Health
Organization. Accessed 29 Nov 2019

WHO. (1988). Adelaide Recommendations on Healthy Public Policy. Paper presented at
the Second International Conference on Health Promotion, 5–9 April 1988, Adelaide,
South Australia. Accessed 29 Nov 2019

WHO. (1996). Research to improve implementation and effectiveness of school health
program. Geneva: World Health Organization. Accessed 29 Nov 2019

WHO.
(nd).
Regional
Framework
for
Health
Promotion
2002-2005.
http://
www.wpro.who.int/health_promotion/regional_framework_health_promotion_2002_200
5.PDF. Accessed 29 Nov 2019

World
Health
Organisation.
Cardiovascular
diseases
(CVDs).
2015.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs317/en/. Accessed 29 Nov 2019

Hajat C, Harrison O, Al SZ. Weqaya: a population-wide cardiovascular screening
program in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Am J Public Health. 2012;102:909–14.
Accessed 29 Nov 2019
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
American Heart Association. Building healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and
stroke. http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/. Accessed 29 Nov 2019

Ministry of Health UAE. Annual report 2000 (pp. 41–43, 219–220); Abu Dhabi: Ministry
of Health UAE; 2000. Accessed 29 Nov 2019

Ministry of Health UAE. Annual report 2002 (pp. 35, 242, 243); Abu Dhabi: Ministry of
Health UAE; 2002. Accessed 29 Nov 2019

Ministry of Health UAE. Annual report 2004 (pp. 39, 205); Abu Dhabi: Ministry of
Health UAE; 2006. Accessed 29 Nov 2019

Ministry of Health UAE. Annual report 2006 (pp. 32, 214, 221, 229, 237); Abu Dhabi:
Ministry of Health UAE; 2007. Accessed 29 Nov 2019

Ministry of Health UAE. Annual report 2008 (pp. 26, 169, 223); Abu Dhabi: Ministry of
Health UAE; 2009. Accessed 29 Nov 2019
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