Health Promotion Association of Zimbabwe

25/05/2026

This Africa Day! Wishing you joy, unity, and prosperity across our beautiful continent. Here is to unity and to prosperous health.

21/05/2026

21/05/2026

The use of scary warning messages can work in Health Promotion, but only when used correctly and ethically.

According to public health and health promotion principles, fear appeals are effective when they do more than frighten people; they must also provide hope, practical action, and empowerment. The goal of Health Promotion is not merely to scare people, but to motivate positive behaviour change and protect communities from preventable disease.

Theories such as the Health Belief Model and the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) show that people are more likely to change behaviour when:

they perceive a serious threat,
believe they are personally at risk,
and are given clear, achievable steps to avoid the danger.

That is why graphic anti-smoking campaigns like have been used worldwide. They increase risk perception, challenge denial, and expose the real consequences of harmful behaviour. Research in to***co control has shown that strong warning labels and graphic images can reduce smoking initiation and encourage quitting.

However, fear alone is insufficient. If messages only terrify without offering solutions, people may become defensive, ignore the message, or feel hopeless. Effective health promotion therefore combines:
truthful warnings,
education,
emotional impact,
and practical support for behaviour change.

01/08/2025

World Breastfeeding Week 2025
📅 1–7 August
Theme: "Enabling Breastfeeding – Making a Difference for Working Parents"

📊 Did you know?
✅ 67% of babies born in the past two years in Zimbabwe were breastfed within the first hour of life.
✅ Only 42% of children under six months are exclusively breastfed.
(Source: Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey 2023–2024)

This week, we join the global community in promoting, protecting, and supporting breastfeeding. While breastfeeding is a personal act between mother and child, its success depends on collective support from families, communities, workplaces, and policy makers.

This year’s theme calls on us to build strong systems at home, at work, and in society that support breastfeeding mothers — and reduce the environmental and financial burden of artificial feeding.

🤝 Breastfeeding is a shared responsibility.
✔️ Employers can support with flexible working hours and breastfeeding-friendly spaces.
✔️ Communities can challenge harmful myths and offer encouragement.
✔️ Policy makers must strengthen maternity protections and improve paternity leave to support both parents in nurturing their babies.

💡 Why Breastfeeding Matters:
🟢 Boosts baby survival rates
🟢 Provides perfect nutrition for infants
🟢 Protects against infectious diseases
🟢 Lowers lifelong risks of obesity, asthma, and heart disease

Let’s work together to create a breastfeeding-friendly Zimbabwe.

07/04/2025

Happy World Health Day 2025!
Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures!

13/03/2025

🔴 Zim’s Health Promotion Officers to Develop Key Data Indicators for DHIS2 Integration

By Kuda Pembere in Kadoma

Health promotion officers have welcomed an initiative to develop their own key data indicators for integration into Zimbabwe’s District Health Information System 2 (DHIS2), a move aimed at making their contributions more visible and measurable.

The Health Promotion Unit (HPU) in the Ministry of Health and Child Care began developing these indicators on Wednesday, with support from Cordaid. This initiative seeks to address a long-standing issue where the impact of health promotion officers’ work is often attributed to other professions...
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Health promotion officers have welcomed an initiative to develop their own key data indicators for integration into Zimbabwe’s District Health Information

03/02/2025

Get your child vaccinated against