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Mental health promotion is a relatively new, evolving and very exciting area of public health. The challenge for mental health promotion in Australia is ‘weaving its many threads’ through the various areas of mental health policy, programs and service delivery.

Training in research and evaluation skills is a frequently expressed need among health promotion practitioners. Research conducted in Scotland among health promotion specialists and their managers showed that training in research on its own would be an insufficient response. In this paper, it is argued that there is a need to develop a broader strategy which seeks to strengthen research capacity within health promotion practice settings, rather than simply offering training to improve practitioners’ research skills. This will help to improve the quality of research conducted in practice settings and contribute to building an evidence base for health promotion. A broader professional development strategy for health promotion research in Scotland is proposed which utilizes a range of learning routes and delivery mechanisms. This will be backed up by the establishment of a broad strategic research partnership which brings together practitioners, researchers and policy‐makers so as to develop a better understanding of what evaluation evidence is needed and who is contributing what.

This chapter analyses and discusses local government health promotion in Norway.

Institutional theory indicates that political and administrative jurisdictions are path dependent in their policy formation and implementation. By using data from different sources this assumption is analysed and discussed according to health promotion in Norwegian municipalities. The main methodology is cross tabulations, bivariate correlations and regression is carried out to supplement analyses.

Municipalities are path dependent in their health promotion policies. They acknowledge and prioritize health behaviour independent of experienced socio-economic challenges, municipal capacity as size and income, and local government political profile. Competence devoted to health promotion can create changes in policies.

The rhetoric on determinants and social determinants in particular is new in Norway. Rhetoric on, and interventions, that highlight the social determinants of health need to be coordinated.

The chapter presents new knowledge on Norwegian local government health promotion and how this is implemented in relation to the challenges experienced.

Mental health promotion is saturated with theoretical ambiguity and is ripe for sustained philosophical investigation. Unfortunately, most philosophical discussion in health promotion is commonplace rather than academic, and many health promotion theorists are unaware that there is a difference. In order to illustrate this intransigent problem, I discuss Glenn MacDonald's recent contribution to this journal (Vol. 1, Issue 2). In so doing I demonstrate four philosophical errors frequently made in health promotion theory, research and practice.

The aim of this study is to analyse the position and role of mental health in health promotion policy. Policy documents from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, England and Portugal indicate that, although mental health is considered a serious issue, it is problematic in policy terms. A range of arguments are put forward, making the case for the importance of mental health within the health promotion agenda, including the classification of mental illness as a public health problem, socio‐economic and individual costs of mental health problems and the view that mental well‐being is a crucial element of overall health. However problems of definition, measurement and a traditional focus on treatment and care continue to make mental health promotion problematic for policy makers.

This paper is about a single case study of a three-year BSc Mental Health Nursing degree programme based at a London University. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the extent to which the programme sufficiently addresses the ten quality criteria developed by the “PROMISE” (2009) Mental Health Promotion Project. PROMISE (2009) is a European public health project funded by the European Commission and was conducted from 2009 to 2012. Its aim was the European-wide development of criteria and training guidelines in mental health promotion and recommended these should be integrated into the professional training curricula of nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers.

A content analysis method (Bryman, 2012) was used for this case study. This method allowed for a line-by-line scrutiny of the contents of the curriculum for evidence of the ten PROMISE quality criteria for mental health promotion (PROMISE project; http://promise-mental-health.com/training-guidelines.html).

The findings revealed that the PROMISE (2009) project was not one of the four key documents stated as forming the basis for the design of the curriculum content. However, the study found evidence of the curriculum addressing the first PROMISE criterion of embracing the principles of mental health promotion in seven of the 14 modules (50 per cent) in the programme. In the first year of the programme five of the ten PROMISE quality criteria were embedded in two of the four modules. In year 2, quality criteria 1, 4 and 7 were addressed in the course content of four of the five modules (see Table I). In the final year of the programme PROMISE quality criteria 1, 2, 4 and 8 were embedded in the syllabus and assessment strategy in two out of the five final year modules. It was also found that quality criteria 2 and 9 were not included in any of the modules in the programme.

This is a case study based on the content analysis of a single curriculum document in a London University. It is therefore not possible to make wide generalisation of its findings across the countries involved in the EU Promise project. However, it could be argued that it is possible to find a number of the key findings present in other UK University programmes that may be similar in structure to that selected for this study. The other limitation to this content analysis is that the evaluation process did not include accounts of the students’ experience on the programme. This could have contributed significantly to the outcome of the evaluation exercise. Although the methodology used is simple, practical and relatively sound, it is not necessarily rigorous in terms of quantitative research methodology but arguably an acceptable contribution to the spectrum within qualitative research paradigm.

The emergence of the “PROMISE” criteria especially on a European-wide basis puts emphasis on the importance of mental health promotion in the training of health care professionals. This is expected to be achieved by the training institutions in the European Union. In the UK, this notion is well embraced in various health policy documents (e.g. “No Health Without Mental Health” DH 2011). In the case of the programme examined at one London University, work is required to ensure that a pervasive incorporation of mental health promotion strategies in the curriculum in order to help the students to become better equipped to understand and effectively apply the mental health promotion criteria in their work upon qualification.

This is one of the first papers to address the “PROMISE” project and the issue of incorporating mental health promotion criteria in a pre-registration mental health pathway training programme in a university in the UK.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of a school health promotion (SHP) advisor in the implementation of the six steps of the Dutch “Schoolbeat” approach, aimed at establishing health promotion policies and activities in secondary schools.

In total, 80 school board members, and 18 prevention coordinators of 18 schools in the Southern Limburg region in The Netherlands completed a written questionnaire on the implementation of the six steps of the Schoolbeat approach, and on their satisfaction with the practical assistance offered by the SHP advisor in implementing the steps, as well as the advisor's organizational competencies.

Only one school implemented the Schoolbeat approach completely, and as intended. Schools were generally satisfied with the practical assistance in the process of implementing the Schoolbeat steps and with the organizational competencies of the SHP advisor. Schools which had partly implemented the Schoolbeat steps were more satisfied with the SHP advisor's practical assistance than schools who had not done so at all.

This study showed that the SHP advisor could make a positive contribution to health promotion in schools. Since this role demands new skills, the competencies of health promotion professionals must be further developed.

Structural school health promotion programs and policies are becoming increasingly important in many countries, and not enough is known about the role of health promotion agencies in structuring school health promotion. This paper describes the positive impact of the SHP advisor.

The importance of mental health promotion is increasingly being recognised as a policy issue in the UK, although little is known yet about progress towards implementing mental health promotion approaches within mental health services. This paper presents an overview of the topic, and reports on a survey of local authorities in England to identify examples of good practice in mental health promotion and the extent to which they are underpinned by evidence.

This paper aimed to review globally the empowerment programs for the prevention and control of smoking behavior among youths, to examine the role of empowerment in health promotion, to explore the stages of health promotion through community empowerment strategies including planning, implementation and evaluation. Finally, this paper will develop a model of youth empowerment to prevent and control smoking behavior that reflects theory and experience drawn from the literature.

This review synthesized articles on community empowerment and health promotion, youth empowerment programs for tobacco prevention and control globally from books and electronic databases from the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) library in the publication period 2000–2020. Relevant literature was selected and critically reviewed which reflected the role empowerment in health promotion, stage of community empowerment strategy as described by Laverack and youth empowerment concept in tobacco control as described by Holden.

Documents that specifically discuss empowerment programs for smoking prevention and control are still limited. The findings document that youth empowerment in tobacco control do not fully integrate the theory empowerment as described by Laverack and Holden. This paper provides information about the stages of youth empowerment, and a conceptual framework of youth empowerment for the prevention and control of smoking behavior. Youth empowerment is done through the direct involvement of youth in programs starting from program design, planning, implementation and evaluation. Indicators of the success of the empowerment process are reflected in the increase in the empowerment domain. Meanwhile, the output of empowerment can be seen from the individual- or group-level changes.

This paper proposes a model of youth empowerment for the prevention and control of smoking behavior among youths based on theory and experience in the field.

The purpose of this study was to examine the health promotion behaviours of Gujarati Asian Indian immigrants in the United States. Although there is an abundance of literature on health promotion behaviours, research on Asian Indian immigrant’s health promotion behaviour remains unexplored. The research was conducted on a national sample of 261 Gujurati immigrants via survey questionnaire. Apath model was utilised to test predictors of health promotion behaviours among the respondents. Findings reveal that health promotion behaviours were positively associated with the respondent’s age, number of work hours and negatively associated with meal change to a more western diet. Implications for social work practitioners are discussed.