Editorial

Abstract

Welcome to the first issue of the International Journal of Health Promotion and Education for 2019. We’d like to wish all our readers a Happy New Year and we hope you enjoy this interesting selection of papers drawn from across the globe. The first paper by Nesbit and Clark comes from a study that was undertaken in Malawi that evaluates the effectiveness of a rehabilitation training programme for community health workers. The findings demonstrated that the training had value for the community health workers in terms of increased competency but that there was also added value for the patients and caregivers that the community health workers interacted with. The paper highlights the importance of the role of community health workers and community-based approaches in resource-limited settings for improving health experience. Community-based interventions such as these are crucial for tackling health inequities and improving health service delivery in poorer settings. This highlights two of the enduring areas of action outlined in the Ottawa Charter – strengthening community action and reorienting health services. The second paper by Tripathi et al. from Saudi Arabia explores knowledge, attitude and practice about osteoporosis. In keeping with research findings on a range of other health issues a gap was found between knowledge (which was generally high), attitudes (which were generally positive) and practice for the prevention of osteoporosis which could generally be improved. The authors argue that this gap requires innovative strategies based on local evidence to promote and encourage the adoption of personal protective measures for osteoporosis prevention. The next paper by Peyman et al. examines the effects of educational interventions on the level of health literacy, self-efficacy and self-care behaviour in patients with heart failure in Iran. It found that health literacy was poor for the majority of the participants. The authors conclude that educational interventions could be an effective way to improve health literacy skills and self-care confidence in people with heart failure. Notably, levels of health literacy were linked to higher levels of educational attainment which points to the importance of the wider socio-economic determinants of health. The final paper by Luquis and Kensinger uses constructs from the Health Belief Model to assess young adults’ use of preventative health services in the United States. The results of the study indicate that the constructs of perceived susceptibility and perceived seriousness play a significant role for young adults and that these are related to individual characteristics such as age and gender. The authors concluded that future health education and promotion efforts to increase the use of preventative services by young adults should focus on perceptions of health risk. Whilst interventions that focus at the individual level are undoubtedly important health promotion emphasises the social determinants of health and the impact that these have on health behaviour and health outcomes. To this end we are pleased to reiterate our further call for papers for a special issue. Here is the overview: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PROMOTION AND EDUCATION 2019, VOL. 57, NO. 1, 1–2 https://doi.org/10.1080/14635240.2019.1565636