Institutional influences on health promotion partnerships

Abstract

Issues addressed: The key ideas about the workings of social institutions are discussed and their implications for the development of collaborative, trust-based relationships between primary care organisations providing integrated health promotion services to local communities are described. Methods: Some findings from a study of community health services are re-analysed using the institutional framework to illustrate some of the institutional barriers to the development of sustainable health promotion partnerships. Conclusions: Within the primary health care sector there are barriers and enablers to integrated health promotion that this analytic approach can help identify. So what?: In the health promotion field, it is unusual to find analyses of social and organisational environments and their implications for effective health promotion. One way of approaching this analysis is discussed in this paper. (author abstract)