Out soon: Global Handbook of Health Promotion Research – vol. 1

We are pleased to announce the upcoming release of the first volume of the Global Handbook of Health Promotion Research. It is the result of a collaborative work, launched in May 2020 by the UNESCO Chair Global Health & Education and the Canada Research Chair in Community Approaches and Health Inequalities, to structure the field of health promotion research.

An ambition: to structure the field of health promotion research

Health promotion, defined as a strategy (a set of coordinated intersectoral actions) aimed at contributing to social change to improve the health of all and reduce health inequalities, has been adopted in many countries. However, the field of health promotion research remains insufficiently structured and lacks the solid foundations of a defined and recognised set of paradigms, approaches and methods. Therefore the UNESCO Chair and the Canada Research Chair launched the project to publish a Global Handbook of Health Promotion Research with the aim to contribute to structuring the field of health promotion research and mobilising the researchers involved.

A global collaborative initiative

The handbook will map, organize and structure the field of health promotion research. The handbook includes original contributions from 173 researchers from 72 countries, and aims to explore the key theoretical, methodological, empirical and policy challenges, and pressing social issues facing health promotion research.

The Handbook consists of three distinct volumes:

  1. Mapping health promotion research
  2. Framing health promotion research (a systematic description of the epistemological and ethical framework of health promotion research)
  3. Doing health promotion research (a compilation of health promotion research paradigms, approaches and methods). 

Because it is impossible to claim an exhaustive description of research practices in one book and because the field is constantly evolving, we wanted to create a space to continue to publish and share articles to enrich this material and keep this initiative alive. Therefore a new section has been created within the journal Global Health Promotion with the aim of gathering original texts that are new to the paradigms or methods used in health promotion research.

Read the call for papers

Read the editorial

Workshops at the IUHPE World Conference

We will present this initiative and discuss its findings at two events during the IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion:

17 May from 00.15 to 00.45: Lunch with the authors, Didier Jourdan and Louise Potvin: A global participatory process to structuring the field of health promotion research: Global Handbook of Health Promotion Research

18 May from 16:00 to 17:15: Workshop facilitated by Didier Jourdan and Louise Potvin: Contributing to the global participatory process to structuring the field of health promotion research

Access the conference programme

For more information

  • Potvin L, Jourdan D. (2022). A new section for Global Health Promotion journal: doing research in health promotion. Global Health Promotion. 29(1), 3-4. https://doi.org/10.1177/17579759221079722
  • Potvin, L., & Jourdan, D. (2021). Health promotion research has come of age! Structuring the field based on the practices of health promotion researchers. Global Health Promotion, 28(4), 26–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/17579759211044077