Promoting Health: Knowledge and Practice (2nd ed.)

Citation

Katz, J., Peberdy, A. and Douglas, J. (2001), "Promoting Health: Knowledge and Practice (2nd ed.)", Health Education, Vol. 101 No. 6, pp. 292-294. https://doi.org/10.1108/he.2001.101.6.292.2

Health Promotion: Professional Perspectives (2nd ed.)

Edited by Angela Scriven and Judy Orme

Palgrave/Open University

London

Health, Promotion, Professionals

Those of us who teach courses on health promotion rely on good, economically priced textbooks, written by the foremost experts in the field, and which will provide basic but challenging reading to get students started in a wide range of issues that are fundamental to the discipline. The Open University has been at the forefront of the production of such treasuries of ideas, and its products are almost invariably characterised by exceptional clarity and good sense. So the updated second editions of these two “old faithfuls” are most welcome, even if the need for the tutors to buy new copies is a bit irritating!

Promoting Health: Knowledge and Practice is the more basic of the two, and is particularly useful for undergraduate level courses, and as an introductory reader for those studying for higher degrees in health promotion who are unfamiliar with the field. It will also be of use to the wide range of professionals and lay people who come to the area, wanting a clear distillation of its current issues and debates. The book explores health promotion at the individual, group and community level, and through the mass media. It takes a refreshingly analytical and critical view of the key debates and theories in the field, including the somewhat sacrosanct “Ottawa Charter”. Since the first edition was written there have been considerable developments in the field, not least in the increased focus on the need for an “evidence base”, and the book spends about a quarter of its length exploring the issues of evidence and evaluation. As well as this macrocosmic and “hard” approach, it also explores the more familiar communication base for health promotion, including the counselling skills needed to help people change. It is written by some of the key exponents of the field, all of them familiar with the need to base theory in sound practice, and to write in a thoughtful but clear way. The whole text is structured to make a coherent whole, with a logical progression through the various issues, and some key themes running throughout. It is hard to identify a clearer serious introduction to the current state of health promotion.

Health Promotion: Professional Perspectives is not intended to be as coherent – it is more of a “reader” on a particular theme. The book begins with a thought‐provoking and intelligent overview of the approach which many believe has to underpin health promotion, that of “empowerment”, written by perhaps the best known exponent of this approach, Keith Tones, who goes so far as to call empowerment an “imperative”. The book then moves into a discussion of the key theme of the book – the principles of partnership working and inter‐professional collaboration. Thereafter it is very much written by individual experts, most of whom discuss a different sector and its contribution to health promotion. Although the authors attempt to discuss the interdependence of the sectors, the book is something of a celebration of diversity, and explores some of the contradictions that often exist between the different discourses used by the varied professions and interest groups who have a stake in this field. It covers a vast range, including the health service, local authorities, settings that relate to youth such as schools and universities, and settings that relate to the workplace, such as trade unions and organisations. It is possibly the only book of its type to explore the interdependence of such a wide range of professions, and is an invaluable source book on this vital theme.