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Empowerment is espoused as a agship value ofhealth promotion. From the bold assertions in theOttawa Charter [1] and the Jakarta declaration [2]through to therecentcommitmentinNairobi[3], thediscourse of empowerment has been unwaveringthroughout. This short points of view paper intendsto stimulate critical discussion about the continuedvalue and use of empowerment in contemporaryhealth promotion. While empowerment has beenseen as a cornerstone of health promotion practiceand philosophy [4], we argue that unresolved chal-lenges associated with the concept may inhibit thecontinued primacy of empowerment within the dis-cipline. A recent evidence review of empowermentand its application to health and well-being (con-ducted by two of the authors and based primarilyon evidence published between 2000 and 2010) hasstimulated this assertion [5]. Lengthier discussionsabout these issues are currently being prepared forpublication; therefore, this short article intends tofocus on the denition of empowerment and, inthe authors’ point of view, the dilution of the con-cept from its original roots as a radical socialmovement.Empowerment,withitsoriginsinliberatorypeda-gogy, is generally viewed as an approach to enablepeople who lack power to become more powerfuland gain some degree of control over their lives andhealth [6]. This suggests that empowerment app-roaches must operate at various levels, from focuss-ing on both the individual through to organizationsand communities [7]. This perspective was capturedby Rappaport [8, p. 122] who suggested that em-powerment is:a process by which people, organzations andcommunities gain mastery over their affairs.This was further reafrmed by Wallerstein[9, p. 198] who has referred to the concept as:...a social-action process that promotes theparticipation of people, organizations andcommunities towards the goals of increasedindividual and community control, politicalefcacy, improved quality of life and socialjustice.Labonte [10] describes empowerment as em-bodying both resistance to power structures throughadvocacy and processes such as community orga-nization, as well as community building and devel-opment. Thus, it is about giving and taking power inunison. In this respect, it is a zero–sum relationshipand power in essence is nite. For example,resources being directed at some people can causethe displacement of power (disempowerment) fromothers due to competition for the same resources[11, 12].In its widest and most radical sense, empower-ment concerns combating oppression and injusticeand is a process by which communities work to-gether to increase the control they have overevents that inuence their lives and health [13].This is reective of health promotion as it was in-tended tobe, albeit as an idealistic vision. Inthe pasttwo decades, however, the focus within publichealth and health promotion has increasingly

Has empowerment lost its power?