Health promotion at the local level

1
Health promotion at the local level

• Joop ten Dam PhD, NIGZ
• Support centre for Community Health (SLAG)
• jtendam_at_nigz.nl
• www.slag.nu

2
Content

• Inequalities in health
• Support centre for Community Health

3
Inequalities in health 1
4
Inequalities in health 2

• Exist in all western societies
• Inequalities decreased the last few centuries
• But increasing since the fifties of the 20th
  century
• Real figures are probably worse

5
New ways

• Across the world, socio-economic inequalities in
  health present one of the main challenges within
  the public health sector.
• But traditional health campaigns and health
  promotion activities often fail to reach people
  with a low SES in an adequate way.
• If health activities are to reach these people,
  they should be implemented closer to them, to the
  places where they live and work. This means that
  the programmes should be implemented at a local
  level.

6
Change of paradigm from health promotion to
community-approach
7
Change of paradigm from health promotion to
community-approach
8
Community-approach

• Co-operation on the local level with
• Politics
• Agencies
• The public

9
In other words

• Health gain
• A local approach
• An open approach
• Co-operation between various sectors
• Involvement of local politics
• Citizens participation

10
Present situation in the Netherlands

• A broad spectre of initiatives in which expertise
  is developed with the community approach, but
• Mostly stand alone,
• Not yet a good structure for support,
• As a result little exchange of good practices
• And little implementation of effective
  instruments
• The effect lost investments and lost
  expertise

11
Support centre for Community Health (SLAG)

• SLAG supports organisations that try to reduce
  health inequalities in a local context and takes
  care of the implementation of effective
  interventions.

12
SLAG offers several services

• Developing new methods to address health issues
  at a local level while sharing existing methods
  and adapting them to local conditions.
• Direct support to pilot projects and publishing
  the results for broader use.
• A network of professionals sharing information,
  analysing projects, and contributing to the
  development of new methods and policies.
• Access to international information on good
  practices to local workers.

13
SLAG-action plan

• Track down and offer health policy instruments to
  local authorities
• Track down and offer succes factors
• Quick interventions in 10 communities in
  2003-2004.

14
SLAG-labs

• Co-operation with local partners in 6 Dutch
  cities
• To develop new methods instead of the traditional
  health campaigns
• Meaning in this combined effort SLAG goes local
  and local goes national.

15
Features

• These projects are long term 5 years or more.
• Using principles of the community-approach
• An open approach
• Community participation
• Intersectoral co-operation
• Political commitment.
• A sound evaluation.

16
www.slag.nu
17
Health promotion at the local level

• Joop ten Dam PhD, NIGZ
• Support centre for Community Health (SLAG)
• jtendam_at_nigz.nl
• www.slag.nu