Health Promotion Research

The overarching intellectual framework that unites the nodes in this Research Group is the academic multidisciplinary field of health promotion, which is founded on the basic premise that health is shaped by the entire human environment and that therefore:

(1) The health care system has a vital role to play, but cannot alone produce better health for the population;

(2) Individuals must be empowered to protect and improve their health, through education and;

(3) All societal sectors should work to produce a social and physical environment that makes healthy choices easy choices and reduce inequities in health.

The POLICY node examines how health-supporting policy in all sectors can produce a community social climate that protects health and supports healthy choices by individuals. The SIPA node contributes to health promotion research by studying how school, home and community settings can provide the foundation for healthy adolescent development. The HEALTH node concentrates its research on risk factors that threaten subjective and mental health, protective factors that strengthen health, and ways to improve health through the health care system and through a broader range of interventions. The VENUES node undertakes research to facilitate empowerment and strengthen human development and health promotion interventions where the need is especially great – in societies that are especially vulnerable due to rapid social and political change, deprivation, exploitation, severe gender discrimination, war and unrest, and widespread illness.

The framework of health promotion influences strongly the Research Group’s research questions, methodologies and ways of working with communities. The four nodes share a philosophy with these cornerstones:

(1) We work with individuals and communities in participative ways, that respect the expertise that communities bring to our research;

(2) We seek to help individuals and communities build their capacity to protect health and good mental, social and physical functioning;

(3) We embrace the different academic perspectives that our multi-disciplinary approach draws together, and the methodological plurality of our environment, in which both qualitative and quantitative perspective flourish.

Strategic Plan

A separate document describing the strategic plan for the Research Centre for Health Promotion is available on request. The research profiles of the subgroups described in this document are to a high degree consistent with the priorities described in the strategic plan. The profile is also consistent with University of Bergen policy. Research on health and research on development, both at the core of research activities at the Research Centre for Health Promotion, are among the top three priorities approved by the Board of the University of Bergen.

One of the paragraphs in the strategic plan of the Research Centre for Health Promotion sounds like this (in Norwegian):

Hemil-senteret har siden tidlig på 1990-tallet og fram til i dag vært Nordens ledende senter for forskning om helsefremmende arbeid og ett av de sterkeste sentrene av dette slaget i Europa. Dette gjenspeiles i den evalueringen som ble gjort av Norges forskningsråd i 2004 og som konkluderte med at Hemil-senteret ble klassifisert som et meget godt fagmiljø med innslag av fremragende forskning (”very good with some excellent features”). Målet er å heve kvaliteten og produktiviteten både på forskning og undervisning ytterligere, slik at vi i en eventuell senere evaluering kan komme enda bedre ut.

The goal of the Centre is to become a centre which is acknowledged for its research excellence. Within 2010, we aim at being one of the three leading centres in Europe on research relevant to health promotion.

After inclusion of new personnel into research nodes under the Research Centre for Health Promotion (Childen’s Protection and Gender and Development) there is a need to have a new discussion on the strategic plan of the Centre. The most important challenges beyond research competence and capacity, is to ensure coherence and continuity.