Healthy alliances between health promotion and education: the results of a national audit

Abstract

The first phase of a three-year research project was undertaken in 1994. This involved a national survey of NHS health promotion units to determine the healthy alliances they had in place with the education sector. Questionnaires were sent to all specialist NHS health promotion units in England and a 64 per cent response rate was achieved. The aim of the survey was to discover the specialist health promoters' perceptions of the extent, purpose and nature of healthy alliances between the two sectors, and the factors they felt had facilitated and/or constrained the establishment of such alliances. Variables included the size and type of unit, the existence of coterminous boundaries and the health promotion approaches adopted. The results demonstrate that health promotion specialists are extremely active in both the initiation and management of collaborative initiatives, with 98 per cent of health promotion units having alliances in place with the education sector. The most common type of alliance is one established with a single LEA, although the majority of units had more than one type of alliance in place with education at the time of the audit. The education sector was said to play a less active role in alliance maintenance. Health promoters were concerned about the substantial change to educational funding. This was seen as a major setback for alliance working, particularly the impact this change has had on the role of local authority advisory staff. These results will be used to establish the second phase of the study, which will involve a national survey of health education advisors.