Introduction

“Many Voices One Song.”
Health-promoting schools: Evidence, Strategies, Challenges and Prospects

A Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Colloquium Abroad

Children in poor countries and from disadvantaged sections of society experience deficiencies that negatively impact a broad range of health indicators. The call for investment to improve the health of children is almost universal and is encapsulated in the challenge of the current WHO millennium goals. However, where national resources for health are sparse, and massive demands already exist, much can be achieved through health promotion at a community level, particularly through health promoting (HP) schools. Health promoting schools use “a whole-school approach to enhance the health and educational outcomes of children and adolescents through teaching and learning experiences initiated in the schools,” directed towards knowledge and action that enable individuals and communities to increase control over determinants of health (WHO). Importantly such activity is well within the ability of even poor countries, as it focuses on the school and its immediate ethos. However, to benefit both individual children and the larger community such education requires structure, process, and evaluation based on successful HP school models.

This colloquium brought together experts in the field, and particularly stakeholders from sub-Saharan Africa, to review the lessons learned to date and define the key elements and optimum processes for establishing and sustaining effective HP schools. The material will be incorporated into a comprehensive manual that will enable communities and agencies to establish, operate, sustain and evaluate health promoting schools. A monograph of the papers presented will also be submitted for publication.

 

"“Many Voices One Song.” Health-promoting schools: Evidence, Strategies, Challenges and Prospects" is a colloquium supported by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Colloquium Abroad program awarded to Andrew Macnab, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia.  The colloquium was held at partner institute, Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), Stellenbosch, South Africa, November 9-11, 2011.