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Competitive Advantage It is perhaps not surprising that in an era when the resources for health promotion are limited and the expectations as to what can be achieved are high, that sustainability has become a familiar catch-cry. Yet all too often enthusiasm has overshadowed critical reflection on whether aiming for sustainability is warranted, let alone feasible. There has been a lack of consensus about conceptual and operational definitions of sustainability in respect to health programmes (Shediac-Rizkallah and Bone, 1998). For health promotion, sustainability may refer to intervention effects or the means by which these are produced the programmes and agencies that implement interventions. The aim of health promotion is to produce intervention effects that may be sustained over time. Sustainability is the most important factor for success of health care organizations.
In the health promotion literature, there has been considerable concern about the need to maintain and retain health promotion programmes long term [e. g. (Schwartz et al. , 1993; Beach et al. , 1994) ]. While there is no doubt that such efforts are often warranted to ensure desirable effects, there are situations in which the retention of a health promotion agency may be more important than maintaining particular programmes in order to ensure an ongoing capacity for health promotion (Stern and Gibelman, 1990; Rosenberg and Weissman, 1995). Furthermore, in some circumstances health promotion effects will be sustained without the need for ongoing intervention. When this occurs, efforts to sustain programmes are not warranted (Green, 1989).
The issues surrounding these differing targets for sustainability (programmes, agencies or effects) have now been explored. Knowing what it is that one health organization seeks to sustain is a useful start, but whether such aspirations are realistic is another question. Unfortunately, to date the not insubstantial body of literature on sustainability in health organizations is not particularly helpful to decision makers. Definitions are confused, there are relatively few empirical studies, and explanatory models tend to be relatively simplistic and descriptive, often failing to consider the substantial literature on learning theory, community action and social policy that has addressed non-health-related issues.
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and Catford, J. (1998) Effects of the Heartbeat Wales programme over five years on behavioural risks for cardiovascular disease: quasi-experimental comparison of results from Wales and a matched reference area. British Medical Journal, 316, 818822. Watzlawick, P. , Weakland, J. H.
and Fisch, R. (1974) Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution. Norton, New York. Wickizer, T. M. , Wagner, E. , Cheadle, A. , Pearson, D. , Beery, W. , Matter, J. et al. (1998) Implementation of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation's Community Health Promotion Grant Program: a process evaluation.
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American Journal of Public Health, 84, 13691372
Free research essays on topics related to: programmes, promotion, sustainability, cardiovascular disease, health promotion
Research essay sample on Cardiovascular Disease Health Promotion
