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Abstract
This article is grounded in reflections on my experiences as a migrant using occupational therapy knowledge to support resettlement in a new country. As a result of my experiences, I see a gap in primary care service provision that has great potential for occupational therapists. Guided by the literature for health promotion, this article offers an emergent vision. The author proposes that an occupational perspective, at primary health care level, would make a valuable contribution towards maintaining and improving the health, well-being and quality of life for individuals, communities and populations.
Key words
Health promotion, immigration, occupational perspective
An occupational perspective within primary health care would make a valuable contribution to maintaining and improving the health, well-being and quality of life for individuals, communities and populations. Occupational therapists should be key members of inter-professional teams (Nicholson, 2009) however, the profession is largely absent from this practice arena. This article stems from my experiences of using professional knowledge of the relationship between occupation and health to support my settling in a new country. These experiences led me to think about the health promoting role of occupational therapy and the potential for my professional knowledge to bridge a significant gap in service provision. In keeping with this realisation, I offer an emergent vision guided by Ann Wilcock's (2006) four levels of health promotion interwoven with my reflections. This will illustrate how an occupational perspective enabled me to improve and maintain my health, well-being and quality of life. My intent is to inspire and challenge occupational therapists to have a stronger presence within primary health care in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Primary health care and occupational therapy
The public healthcare approach focuses on preventing illness and disability, as well as promoting health and wellbeing (Wilcock, 2003). Primary health care, a branch of public health, specifically focusses on preventative health and health promotion measures (Leclair et al., 2005). Since good health or ill health is a consequence of what people do or don't do every day, health promoting occupational therapy is about enabling people to take control of, and improve their health and wellbeing through their everyday doing (occupations) (Wilcock, 2006). However, the occupational therapy profession has not been very active in the area of public health (Hocking,...