The Centre
The Clinical Health Promotion Centre at the Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine at Lund University was designated as a WHO Collaborating Centre (WHO CC) for Implementation of evidence-based Clinical Health Promotion in February 2016 and is a collaboration between the World Health Organization (WHO), the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs with the support of Lund University and Region Skåne.
The centre integrates research, teaching & training and implementation & evaluation of clinical health promotion to improve patient safety and health benefits on short and long term of the individual patients and their family, the staff, the healthcare and society as a whole.
The activities focus on improving prevention, treatment and rehabilitation related to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, malnutrition, obesity, physical inactivity and comorbidity.
Our main focus is on implementation & evaluation. We use the new evidence-based ‘Fast-track Implementation Model (Fast-IM)’ tested with great results in 8 countries in collaboration with WHO and member hospitals in the International HPH-Network – and the easy-to-use RE-AIM tool for reporting.
What is a WHO CC?
A WHO CC is an institution appointed by the WHO Director-General to carry out activities in support of WHO programs and policy framework:
The European Programme of Work (2020-2025) - ‘United Action for Better Health in Europe’ a vision of how the WHO Regional Office for Europe can better support countries in the European region in meeting citizens' expectations about health.
The Thirteenth General Programme of Work (GPW 13) defines WHO’s strategy for 2019-2023. It focuses on triple billion targets to achieve measurable impacts on people’s health at country level.
Agenda 2030 which includes 17 global goals for sustainable development where "Goal 3 is to ensure that everyone can live a healthy life and work for the well-being of all people of all ages".
Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of noncommunicable diseases (NCD), which includes nine global goals, including 25% relative reduction in premature death due to NCD by 2025.
Our WHO Collaborating Centre was first based on the European health policy framework:
Health 2020 consists of the common goal for all 53 member countries of WHO Europe and aims to support action across governments and society to: "Significantly improve the health and well-being of the population, reducing inequalities in health care, improve public health and ensure a person-centered health system that is universal, fair, sustainable and of high quality".
Overall, the main challenge is how to move from evidence to implementation. On average, it takes about 10 years from gathering evidence to implementation, and innovative approaches to implementation are required instead of just giving more of the same. Therefore, the WHO CC will work with fast-track implementation, which is more necessary than ever before. The fast track implementation approach requires collaboration across borders and knowledge and experience sharing of best evidence-based practice. The bridging includes local, national and international levels, as well as primary and secondary care and other sectors across different hospital departments, patient and staff groups.