Apologies for cross-posting from the Health-Promotion list - but there are a
number of Click4HP readers who are not also subscribers to the HPRIN
list-serv, and would have missed this announcement
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Effectiveness and quality of health promotion
4th European IUHPE Conference
with the theme "Best Practices"
Helsinki& Tallinn 16-19 May, 1999
Greetings from Helsinki,
I am sending this pressrelease to remind you of the forthcoming conference &
important dates for your calendars. We would appreciate, if you would
publish this material in your magazines, notice boards, newsletters and
other publications to pass the word around. Early registration fee and
abstract deadline is March 5, 1999. You are invited to visit our website for
further information. Or please contact the conference secretariat directly
by email. The address is [log in to unmask]
With best wishes
Satu Lipponen
Project manager
Effectiveness and Quality of Health Promotion
4th European IUHPE Conference
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Finnish Centre for Health Promotion
Karjalankatu 2 C 63, 00520 Helsinki, Finland
tel. 358-9-725 30356, fax. 358-9-725 30320
gsm +358-50- 590 0734
[log in to unmask]
http://www.health.fi/quality
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Sharpening the Profile of Health Promotion
Helsinki, 20 January - Mark Waller - Finnish Centre for Health Promotion--
How should the effectiveness and quality of the wide-ranging area health
promotion be gauged? Economic constraints, mushrooming technology, increased
public awareness of health issues together with higher hopes for improved
life all combine to put the pressure on health promotion as never before.
One way is to try to identify the best practices in health promotion, to cut
across the multitude of research and monitoring projects represented in the
field by searching out excellence and results.
This is the aim of the upcoming 4th European conference of the International
Union for Health Promotion and Education to be held 16-19 May in Helsinki
and Tallinn.
In spanning two countries with quite different backgrounds in health the
conference will spotlight the variety of problems and approaches to health
promotion found in a corner of Europe that has experienced much upheaval in
the last 10 years.
Against this background some 500-600 people involved in health promotion
will debate and try to shed light on the banner theme of the forum: Best
Practices. They will include leading researchers in specialist health
promotion fields.
Much of the discussion will focus on presenting hard facts to show that
health promotion achieves results that impact on the health of populations.
The issue has been a contentious one, as have the approaches to what
constitute 'effectiveness' and 'quality',how they should be measured and
judged, and the extent to which competitive market strategies should be the
yardstick for doing so. One of the aims of the conference will be to
identify some of the values supporting the practice of health promotion, and
in one session to look at the topic of rationality in health promotion
policy.
According to the IUHPE, health promotion is proven to work well in six high
profile areas: mental health, disease associated with lifestyle,
tobacco use, health at work, preventing injury and what it calls "successful
aging". It argues that health promotion in these areas should
not demand vast resources, but needs fairly modest investment by
governments coupled with clear development goals.
Part of the problem is weighing up the strengths and weaknesses of health
promotion is the lack of hard facts about the size and nature of health
problems in different countries.
"Not enough resources have been mobilized to build national and local health
surveillance and information systems, and data analysis has been patchy and
unreliable," complains the WHO. As part of its recent drive for structural
change, the WHO is targeting the problem of insufficient information as well
up upgrading its approach to health promotion.
According to a WHO policy statement released last November, "policies,
programmes and interventions encouraging healthy lifestyles will be devised
on the basis of social, economic and environmental determinants of health,
indvidual behavioural patterns, including various interactions between
them." In other words the approach to health promotion will be honed along
more informed lines.
But the analysis of health promotion at the Helsinki-Tallinn conference will
not be confined to debating theoretical approaches in general terms. The
conference will hear hundreds of presentations from highly specific and
local contexts in which promoting health is a special feature.
These will be delivered and debated in some 20 workshops covering such
things as health promotion in schools, in the information society, and as
an aspect of risk assessment. The list of subjects ranges from tobacco to
trauma, ecology to equality.
The conference is being organised in cooperation with the Finnish Centre for
Health Promotion and the Estonian Centre for Health promotion. The WHO
Regional Office for Europe is a co-sponsor. The initiative has close links
with the European Commission's efforts to shape a new public health policy
framework for the community, in which health promotion is reckoned to play a
decisive part.
:::::
Further information
Harri Vertio, Director, Finnish Centre for Health Promotion
Tel. +358 9 725 30336, fax. +358 9 725 30320 or e-mail
[log in to unmask]
Anu Kasmel, Director, Estonian Centre for Health Education and Promotion
Tel. +372 627 92 87, fax: +372 627 92 81 or e-mail [log in to unmask]
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