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FUTURE-ORIENTED HEALTH PROMOTION
3. THE NEED FOR PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES FOR THE FUTURE
HEALTH PROMOTION
Arja Liinamo
Health promotion (HP) is viewed as representing a comprehensive social and political process which not only embraces action directed at strengthening the skills and capabilities of individuals, but also actions directed toward changing social, environmental and economic conditions which impact health (Nutbeam 1998). For HP capacity building in spirit of the Ottawa Charter (WHO 1986) strongly emphasized the importance of professional competence and skills development (The Vienna Declaration 2016). Renewed interest in identifying competencies for effective health promotion practice and education has increased and therefore the identi cation of core competencies offers a means of developing a shared vision of what constitutes the speci c knowledge and skills required for effective health promotion practice. There is a need for competencies which delineate the speci c body of skills, knowledge and expertise that represents, and is distinctive to, health promotion practice to unify and strengthen health promotion workforce capacity across Europe. (Allegrante, Barry, Airhihenbuwa et al. 2009). Internationally, health promotion competence framework as well as core professional competencies have been developed and presented by a European project entitled ‘Developing Competencies and Professional Standards for Health promotion Capacity Building in Europe’ (CompHP), which was funded by the European Agency for Health and Consumers (Dempsey, Battel-Kirk, Barry 2011).
The transnational recognition of professional quali cations has provided an impetus for developing common standards and quality criteria in the training and education of health professionals (Dempsey, Barry, Battel-Kirk et al. 2011; Santa-María Morales, Battel-Kirk, Barry et al. 2009). There may be differences in cultural and regional contexts in the perceptions of HP competencies. It is important to understand workforce perceptions about HP competencies in different countries to inform policy and practicebin relation to workforce training, recruitment and international HP activities, (Shilton, Howat, James et al. 2008).