The role of health promotion in the transition of the Nordic welfare states

Abstract

The 6th Nordic Health Promotion Research Conference: The Role of Health Promotion in the Transition of the Nordic Welfare States was held in Gothenburg, Sweden in August 2009. The aim of the conference was to focus on and share results from ongoing Nordic as well as international research in health promotion. The conference themes reflected current aspects of changes in research and work within health promotion locally, nationally and internationally. The Nordic School of Public Health, NHV, hosted the conference. www.nhv.se/hpconference09. The Ottawa Charter (1986) and the seven principles of Rootman et al. (2001) were the guiding principles for the conference presentations [1–3]. The action means of the Ottawa Charter are to build healthy public policy, create supportive environments, strengthen community action, develop personal skills and re-orient health services. The seven key principles of Rootman et al. are empowerment, participation, holism, intersectorality, equitability, sustainability and multistrategy. In order to reach a greater audience both in the Nordic countries and outside some of the researchers who participated in the conference were asked to write scientific articles that covered the theme they presented at the conference. The results are in this Supplement to the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. A way to understand health promotion is to look upon the research in the field. The action means from the Ottawa Charter are touched upon in the articles. Vallgarda and Ollila address the concepts of building of a healthy public policy and re-orientation of health services. Vallgarda concludes that there is no common Nordic political approach to public health, and Ollila argues that health in all policies is necessary and that implementation of intersectoral health policies in practice remains challenging. Thorlindsson speaks of multistrategy and argues for the necessity to develop a transdisciplinary approach that integrates various elements from different disciplines and various levels of analysis. Johansson and Tillgren discuss whether there are financial incentives of collaborating organizations and illustrate with two examples. Torp, Guldbergsson, Dahl, Fossa and Flotten address creating supportive environments and strengthening community action. Equitability is one of the seven principles of Rootman et al. and is a focus in the majority of the articles. It is also central in the papers of Edwards and Di Ruggiero, who conclude that it is necessary to examine the effect of historical, global and dynamic contextual influences on health inequities in population-based interventions; Povlsen, Fosse and Borup find that the concepts of inequity and inequality are used synonymously by Nordic authors. Abel, Fuhr, Bisegger, Ackerman Rau and the European Kidscreen group highlight three forms of capital, namely economic, social and cultural resources in adolescents’ health, and Due, Krolner, Rasmussen, Andersen, Damsgaard, Graham and Holstein present a model of pathways and mechanisms from adolescence to adult health inequalities. Health education is central within health promotion. Hauge and Hem focus on health promotion education developed into a Masters programme and analyze the Galway Consensus Conference Statement (GCCS) according to health, health promotion and health promotion ethics. They conclude that the