My tip for health promotion practitioners would be to keep focusing
upstream! My favourite article - at the moment - is one by Ronald Labonte
('Health Promotion in the Future:  Rememberances of Activism Past' Health
Education Journal Vol 58, No 4, Dec 1999, p365-377) in it he reflects on
health promotion over the past couple of decades and concludes that health
promoters have to reconnect with the political nature of their work (to say
that your approach is neutral is to endorse the status quo and the
prevalennt - neo liberal - ideology). He proposes that we should move from a
focus on risk behaviours to a focus on risk conditions. Clearly this view
supports a socio economic model of health and suggests that the the most
effective use of the health promotion resource locally, nationally and
internationally is to ameliorate the effects of poverty and to address it's
causes, what do you think?

David King
HIV & Sexual Health Team Coordinator
Barnet Health Authority
Hyde House
London NW9 6QQ

Tel: 020 8201 4860