Abstract
Health promotion research and practice reveal that goal setting and monitoring have gained increased acceptance at international, national, provincial/state, regional and local levels. The global adoption of health goals as a strategy for population health promotion has occurred even though few protocols or guidelines to support the health goals development process have been published. Limited study has occurred on the variation in approach to health goals planning, or on the complex, multiple forces that influence the development process. This paper describes conclusions drawn from an exploratory and descriptive case study that tracked the pathways to health goals in British Columbia (BC) and uncovered nearly 100 factors that influenced the final version of health goals adopted by the government of BC.
Influencing factors included: (a) positive perceptions of the benefits of health goals, (b) the role of a trusted health goals champion, (c) positioning of the goals as government rather than health ministry goals, (d) the format and agenda of the health goals consulting process, and (e) political reluctance toward highly specific or measurable goals with targets.
Abrégé
La recherche et la pratique en promotion de la santé révèlent que la détermination d’objectifs en matière de santé et le suivi de ces objectifs sont de plus en plus acceptés aux niveaux international, national, provincial/étatique, régional et local. L’adoption générale des objectifs en matière de santé comme stratégie de promotion de la santé de la population s’est faite malgré le fait que peu de protocoles ou de lignes directrices appuyant le processus de développement des objectifs ont été publiés. Un nombre limité d’études ont été réalisées concernant l’éventail des approches dans la planification des objectifs ou sur les complexes et multiples forces qui influencent leur processus de développement. Cet article décrit les conclusions tirées d’une étude de cas exploratoire et descriptive qui a suivi l’évolution des objectifs en matière de santé en Colombie-Britannique (C.-B.) et a révêlé près d’une certaine de facteurs qui ont influencé la version finale des objectifs de santé adoptées par le gouvernement de la C.-B.
Entre autres facteurs d’influence, il y a eu: (a) les perceptions positives des bénéfices des objectifs de santé; (b) le rôle d’un leader crédible; (c) l’établissement des objectifs comme étant ceux du gouvernement plutôt que ceux du mi-nistère de la santé; (d) la forme et les objectifs du processus de consultation; (e) la résistance politique à adopter des objectifs tout à fait mesurables ou dotés de cibles.
Footnotes
This work was made possible through funding provided by the British Columbia Health Research Foundation.
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