Developing Health Promotion Workforce Capacity for Addressing Non-communicable Diseases Globally

Abstract

Capacity development for the implementation of health promotion policies and practices is fundamental to strengthening and sustaining action on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). The capacity and infrastructure to support health promotion action varies considerably across countries and is particularly underdeveloped in many low- and middle-income countries. This chapter focuses on health promotion workforce capacity and the development of health promotion competencies for the implementation of existing knowledge into effective health promotion action on NCDs. International perspectives on health promotion capacity development are discussed, including research on health promotion workforce capacity and training needs in LMICs. The development of health promotion competencies as a key element of workforce capacity development is outlined with particular reference to the Galway Consensus Conference Statement (Allegrante et al., Health Education and Behavior 36(3):476–482, 2009; Barry et al., Global Health Promotion 16(2):05–11, 2009) and the European-based CompHP Project (Barry et al., The CompHP Project Handbooks. Paris: International Union for Health Promotion and Education, 2012). The need for investment in health promotion capacity development for effective action on the prevention and control NCDs is discussed.