Abstract

In terms of population health status, African region has some of the worst performing indicators in the world. However, countries are striving to achieve the international health development goals specified in the PHC, MDGs and SDGs. The observation is that strategies used are essentially those of behavior change (IEC, HE, BCC, etc.). While unhealthy behaviors respond to a "social gradient" so that without social inequalities in health reduction, achieving sustainable improvement results is almost impossible. We must raise the social level of people in order to be able to obtain healthier behaviors. The expiry of the SDGs is expected to prompt countries in the region to move towards Health Promotion approach for the social inequalities in health reduction and therefore a sustainable improvement of the populations’ health status.

Keywords

health improvement, behavior change communication, social gradient, social determinants of health, social inequalities in health, Africa