RHP&EO is the electronic journal of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education

Regional Strategies For Injury Prvention - Expiriences

Ragnar Andersson

Stockholm County Council and the Karolinska Institute, Dept. Public Health Sciences, Div. Social Medic'me, S-172 83 Sundby, Sweden.

Purpose: The objective of this study was to compare all six currently existing county-wide injury promotion programs in Sweden, with respect to their strategical approaches, and to relate them to models and principles found in the literature.

Materials and method: The analysis was based upon written program documents, The principle strategies for program development, as they ware applied in each program, were reconstructed and described in a uniform and comparable manner. All strategy descriptions were approved by the program leaders involved.

Results: Major differences were found between the six approaches. The main differences concerned modes o£ initiation and dissemination as related to parameters such as organizational level, geographical coverage, and target areas/groups.

Conclusion: Regional circumstances constitute the rationale for adoption of a particular approach. Thus, there is no approach to be consistently preferred over the other. Instead of a universal strategy, this study demonstrates the need for a conceptual and theoretical Frame of reference in which the various specific approaches can be integrated, compared, and understood, in light of the actual circumstances in each setting..

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