Background: The WHO policy framework - Health for all in the 21st century – in the European region provides Health Promotion and thereby Public Health practitioners with an agenda that includes and highlights equity (health as a resource for all humans regardless of background), environmental aspects (influences peoples health and possibilities of being healthy) and economic aspects (the ability and possibility of making healthy choices). These dimensions are also the pillars of sustainable development. Besides these similarities the two concepts seems to cohere on several key points in their fundamental visions and strategies; long-term view, interdisciplinary collaboration, holistic approach including system thinking, democracy and participation etc. Although, are the concepts really coherent in their definitions and explanations of these visions and strategies?
The objective is to study similarities and differences between the concepts of health promotion and sustainable development in Swedish national documents for public health and sustainable development between 1992 and 2006.
Method: A systematic review of a strategically sample of governmental public health and sustainable development documents including a manifest content analysis to get an understanding of how health promotion and sustainable development as concepts are described.
Expected results: Preliminary results indicate that the concepts have different approaches to a few of the similar key points, especially participation and democracy. The final results will help to clarify the relationship between the concepts of health promotion and sustainable development and will be presented at the conference.