Integrated health promotion strategies: a contribution to tackling current and future health challenges

Abstract

This paper was presented as a technical background paper at the WHO sixth Global Conference on Health Promotion in Bangkok Thailand, August 2005. It describes what we know about the effectiveness of four of the Ottawa Charter health promotion strategies from eight reviews that have been conducted since 1999. The six lessons are that (i) the investment in building healthy public policy is a key strategy; (ii) supportive environments need to be created at the individual, social and structural levels; (iii) the effectiveness of strengthening community action is unclear and more research and evidence is required; (iv) personal skills development must be combined with other strategies to be effective; (v) interventions employing multiple strategies and actions at multiple levels are most effective; (vi) certain actions are central to effectiveness, such as intersectoral action and interorganizational partnerships at all levels, community engagement and participation in planning and decision-making, creating healthy settings (particularly focusing on schools, communities, workplaces and municipalities), political commitment, funding and infrastructure and awareness of the socio-environmental context. In addition, four case studies at the international, national, regional and local levels are described as illustrations of combinations of the key points described earlier. The paper concludes that the four Ottawa Charter strategies have been effective in addressing many of the issues faced in the late 20th century and that these strategies have relevance for the 21st century if they are integrated with one another and with the other actions described in this paper.

Public Health Citizen Science; Perceived Impacts on Citizen Scientists: A Case Study in a Low-Income Neighbourhood in the Netherlands

“…Moreover, the health promoting potential of public health citizen science projects, like all health promotion, can be meaningful only if embedded in broader, longer lasting strategies (Jackson et al 2006). Indeed, shortlived projects without follow-up or implementation of their recommendations may have the adverse effects of disappointing and discouraging the groups engaged.…”

A intersetorialidade no Programa Saúde na Escola: avaliação do processo político-gerencial e das práticas de trabalho

“…Among the various concepts of intersectorality, there is a degree of convergence that may be understood as the coordination of different sectors and players, and shared power and knowledge in order to take integrated action on problems and demands, aiming to improve quality of life 2,3 . The international debate on intersectorality in the field of healthcare has stressed interventions on the social determinants of health [4][5][6] , and creating partnerships and alliances for implementation 7,8 . They also point out that local interventions are more likely to produce sustainable and satisfactory results 9,10 .…”

Identifying barriers to implementation of health promoting schools in Pakistan: The use of qualitative content analysis and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process

“…Legislation has been considered as the most effective tool for implementing health initiatives (Jackson et al, 2006). Our respondents believe that health promotion efforts will never be functional and successful until the government establishes proper legislations and operational reforms in favor of health initiative in schools.…”