Health Promotion in Schools, Universities, Workplaces, and Communities

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About this Research Topic

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Background

Health education, well-being improvement, and advocacy are effective health promotion strategies among cutting-edge Public Health practices. Salutogenic perspectives, rooted in ecological models, have taken their rightful place to empower individuals and communities to change their life ecosystems and preserve and improve their health. It is imperative to shift from targeting protective or risk factors, which have linear causal relationships with health conditions and/or comorbidities, and encompass a systemic understanding of the role of health determinants in creating health. Individual, collective, and structural ecological approaches can better reduce health inequities. Moreover, engaging the presumed beneficiaries from such strategies ensures that actual needs are identified, and choices are context-specific. It improves the whole implementation process as well as its results. Higher levels of participation, such as co-creation, imply a bottom-up, voluntary, collaborative process rooted in values of diversity, mutual trust, openness, autonomy, freedom, and respect, as well as shared expertise, responsibility, and decision-making, which are essential values in co-creating health promotion.

This Research Topic focuses on new developments in “health promotion in schools, universities, workplaces, and communities”, which are places and social contexts where people engage in daily activities and in which environmental, policy, organizational, and individual factors interact to affect health and well-being. This topic welcomes original theoretical, methodological, and empirical research studies and reviews targeting health-promoting initiatives implemented in such settings. In addition to the holistic view of health promotion, diverse themes (e.g. but not limited to eating, physical activity, health literacy, smoking reduction/cessation, bullying prevention, sexuality, etc.) can be addressed, and gender issues and health inequities are points of interest. A particular focus is set on the underlying framework/program theory, the planning, the implementation process, and the evaluation of the health promotion initiative. In addition, the impact and lessons learned are of utmost importance. In brief, this issue intends to discuss the active ingredients, favorable conditions, and competencies needed to implement successful health promotion initiatives in different settings (schools, universities, workplaces, and communities), intending to contribute to the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

This research topic welcomes the submission of original theoretical, methodological, and empirical research studies and reviews focussed on health-promoting initiatives implemented in schools, universities, workplaces, or communities that, among others, can address the following issues:
• Diverse health promotion themes, including but not limited to healthy eating, physical activity, health literacy, smoking reduction/cessation, bullying prevention, sexuality, etc.
• Gender issues and health inequalities.
• Emphasis on the underlying framework/program theory, the planning, the implementation process, and the evaluation of the health promotion initiative.
• Health promotion initiative’s impact and lessons learned.
• Active ingredients, favorable conditions, and specific competencies for successful health-promoting initiatives in schools, universities, workplaces, or communities.

Keywords: health promotion, schools, universities, workplaces, communities, public health

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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