Good practices in health promotion for older people - Significance for evidence in health policy

Abstract

This article is devoted to convincing policy makers to use good practices in encouraging older people to pursue adequate and effective health policies. Long-term scientific research focused on the effects of health promotion programmes is rarely undertaken, although its scope is still expanding. At the same time, it is strongly desirable to form health policy based on scientific evidence. In this situation, an indication of good practices characterised by precisely defined features and their systematic evaluation could be an alternative to an insufficient number of empirical studies. The first step of the methodology was a literature review on health promotion for older people, aimed at defining good practices and criteria used for their selection. The authors searched the following databases: PubMED, Embase and Cochrane Library, as well as international databases dedicated to health promotion programmes for older people (e.g. Age-friendly World (https://extranet.who.int/agefriendlyworld/age-friendly-practice-database-launched); HealthProElderly (www.healthproelderly.com/database/index.php?id=16); JA-CHRODIS (www.chrodis.eu); EuroHealthNet (www.eurohealthnet.eu) and ProFouND; (www.profound.eu.com). As relevant health policy information is usually available in national languages, the authors then approached national experts in 10 European countries, who filled in a dedicated survey on health promotion programmes for older people and indicated examples of good practices from their countries. Practical evidence, based on real implemented programmes, is valuable as inspiration for health promotion programmes, their planning and management. Selecting good practices from among implemented and evaluated actions makes it possible to establish their value. The significance of good practices in health promotion is to deliver real benefits and health effects for a target group, which, in the case of evident benefits, renders the practices credible and worthy of further dissemination. The EU already successfully shares good practices in migrant health and environmental protection. Creating databases on good practices helps policy makers promote the sustainability of already implemented activities and enhances their applicability by other organisations and in different settings.

Keywords: criteria; evidence based; good practice; health programme; older people.