Health Promotion: Global Perspectives Sharing ideas and forming collaborations worldwide.

From the editor ... Dr. Robert Karch, EdD; Professor and Chair, Department of Health and Fitness and Executive Director, Center for Health Fitness at American University, also Founder of the International Institute for Health Promotion, and Editor of Health Promotion: Global Perspectives.

We launched Health Promotion: Global Perspectives in March of 1998 with the editorial goal of "sharing goals and building collaborations worldwide".   This is critically important because health promotion efforts are blossoming around the world.  Some countries like the United States, Canada, England, Australia, Japan and others have been involved in health promotion for decades.  Others like Korea, China, Zimbabwe, India, Brazil and many more are just getting started.  We can all learn from each other.

Professionals in countries just getting started can leapfrog some of the trial and error state by observing successes and failures experienced in the more established program countries.  Professionals in the more established programs can identify opportunities for further improvement by observing the successes of established programs in other countries.  Probably most important, all professionals can enhance their ability to think and plan by observing the approaches that inevitably emerge from different cultural perspectives.  In fact, we suspect that some of the best ideas will come from countries just beginning to develop programs who can draw on all the existing "programming technology" but are not encumbered with existing biases.

Each issue includes a special focus such as policy, programming, communication, technology, research methods, as well as profiles of specific countries, regional highlights, and updates on the International Institute for Health Promotion.  We have already published contributions from Singapore, Latin America (PAHO), China, India, Zimbabwe, Mexico, South Africa, Italy, Czech Republic, England, south Africa, Latvia, Japan, Brazil, Kenya, Uganda, and Thailand.  We will continue to draw on these countries and many others.

Select a back issue of Health Promotion Global Perspectives to review: