Judd Allen

A sense of community, a shared vision and a positive culture: core enabling factors in successful culture based health promotion.

Judd Allen, Ph.D., is Vice President of the Human Resources Institute, Morristown, New Jersey, Clinical Instructor at Cornell University Medical College, and Senior Research Analyst of the Division of Cancer Control, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York. As has been pointed out in previous reviews of culture change approaches, such programs require the continuing commitment of a significant number of organizational members.’4 Systematic culture change is more than periodic random offerings such as a health hazard appraisal, a workshop, a packaged sen~inar, or a promotional flier. Culture change requires a comprehensive systematized and continuing revision of cultural influence mechanisms such as rewards, social recognition, training, orientation, communication, and information systems. Key factors have been found to be highly important in bringing about and sustaining revisions in these mechanisms and systems and in order to modify health cultures and health behaviors related to them. This article discusses three enabling factors -a shared vision, a positive culture and a sense of community -which have been found to account for much of the vitality generated through successful culture change efforts.

Achieving Health Promotion Objectives through Cultural Change Systems.

Judd Allen Ph.D. is Senior Research Analyst of the Division of Cancer Control, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in New York, New York. Robert F. Allen Ph.D., is President of the Human Resources Institute, in Morristown, New Jersey. Some say that we are in the midst of a health revolution, but if we are not careful it might be more accurate to say that we are merely on a healthbuying spree. Thousands of Americans have bought jogging shoes, read books on relaxation, begun weight-reduction and smoking cessation programs, but only an extremely small fraction have managed to hang onto any changes in the style of life that they have made. Large scale longitudinal indexes of health-risk behavior have not changed significantly in the past decade.’

Reflections on Developments in Health Promotion in the Past Quarter Century From Founding Members of the American Journal of Health Promotion Editorial Board

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the American Journal of Health Promotion, all 14 of the founding members of our editorial board who are still affiliated with the Journal submitted reflections on how the field of health promotion has evolved in the past quarter of a century. Comments from 10 of them are below. Comments by four of them (J. Allan Best, PhD, Ron Goetzel, PhD, Barry Franklin, PhD, and Lawrence Green, DrPH) and comments by me are published as separate articles in this issue. As I look at the photos of these 14 people at the top of this page, I see 14 talented scholars and practitioners, 14 kind souls, 14 friends, and 14 middle-aged (and plus) white men. They are middle-aged (and plus), because they have been with us for 25 years. They are white and male, because that was the nature of our field 25 years ago. I am pleased to say that 148 (52%) of the 285 members of our current editorial team, and three of our four Associate Editors in Chief, are women. I don’t have an accurate racial breakdown of our current editorial team, but I do know that we are much more diverse than we were 25 years ago. These changes in gender and race are also a reflection of changes in the leadership of our field which I believe will help us better understand all populations and ultimately produce programs that will engage more people and produce even better outcomes.

The Role of Subcultures in Wellness Initiatives

Previous issues of The Art of Health Promotion (TAHP) have addressed the important influence of organizational culture on individual health behaviors. This issue of TAHP examines the role of subcultures in wellness initiatives. This commentary defines subcultures, discusses why they are important, outlines approaches to measurement, and suggests strategies for fostering wellness subcultures.