POINT OF VIEW Has empowerment lost its power?

Empowerment is espoused as a flagship value of health promotion. From the bold assertions in the Ottawa Charter [1] and the Jakarta declaration [2] through to the recent commitment in Nairobi [3], the discourse of empowerment has been unwavering throughout. This short points of view paper intends to stimulate critical discussion about the continued value and use of empowerment in contemporary health promotion. While empowerment has been seen as a cornerstone of health promotion practice and philosophy [4], we argue that unresolved challenges associated with the concept may inhibit the continued primacy of empowerment within the discipline. A recent evidence review of empowerment and its application to health and well-being (conducted by two of the authors and based primarily on evidence published between 2000 and 2010) has stimulated this assertion [5]. Lengthier discussions about these issues are currently being prepared for publication; therefore, this short article intends to focus on the definition of empowerment and, in the authors’ point of view, the dilution of the concept from its original roots as a radical social movement. Empowerment, with its origins in liberatory pedagogy, is generally viewed as an approach to enable people who lack power to become more powerful and gain some degree of control over their lives and health [6]. This suggests that empowerment approaches must operate at various levels, from focussing on both the individual through to organizations and communities [7]. This perspective was captured by Rappaport [8, p. 122] who suggested that empowerment is: