Policy Recommendations for healthy living environments and municipal health promotion in Europe

Abstract

Abstract   Municipalities can be the motor for health equity. But how should health promotion policies at all levels be formulated in order to mobilize local action for health? The Work package (WP) “Healthy Living Environments” in the Joint Action Health Equity Europe (2018 - 2021) focussed its work on this question. Based on a common Policy Framework for Action (PFA) and 14 Country Assessments (CA), actions were implemented representing a wide spectrum of policy responses to promote health equity through a municipal health promotion approach. At the end of the project, policy recommendations subsume the expertise and experience of the partners contributing to the sustainability of results. The policy recommendations were generated in 3 steps: Relevant project documents were collected and analysed, including the PFA, the CA, the reports and evaluation of actions and the results of a Delphi study conducted in the frame of the project. A synopsis of these documents was analysed in a workshop with the WP partners, resulting in decisions about the concept and necessary messages the policy recommendations should include. Some of the implemented actions and collected practices from the project were selected to elaborate the individual recommendations along these examples. A working group drafted the policy recommendations. After a second workshop to discuss the draft, the final recommendations were consented by the WP partners.   The preliminary results include recommendations for different political levels, as health equity needs multi-level and multi-stakeholder health in all polices approaches along a quality-oriented process. A specific equity lens and a focus on existing frameworks, tools and capacity-building approaches is needed. Also the stronger deficits of municipal health promotion like the lack of scientific evidence or data at local level were identified. Ways of applicability and integration into the agendas of the audience will be discussed.