Knowledge about health promotion is in high demand nationally as well as globally among municipalities and regions, the business community and professional organisations, volunteers and NGO organisations. Structure reforms, public participation, globalisation, and demographic changes are four societal developments which are a primary background for the need for new research on health promotion.

The research group Health Promotion creates knowledge about strategies, initiatives, and processes which prevent and advance human health. In this way the research group contributes to:

• National, European, and transnational research with global perspectives
• Strategies for health promotion on the labour market, within the health services, in policies as well as in everyday life
• Health promotion initiatives within the region
• Teaching on health promotion within long, medium, and short educations

The research group Health Promotion is organized as an independent interdisciplinary research team consisting of:

• Researchers working with health, learning, and culture at the Department of Psychology and Educational Studies
• Researchers working with health and environment at Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change
• Individual researchers from other departments
• The Graduate School in Lifelong Learning 
• Affiliated environments

The formation of the research group

Before the formation of the research group Health Promotion many researchers at Roskilde University were working with projects and key questions within the research field. However, contact and academic exchanges between them was very limited, and the researchers were basing their studies mainly on the theoretical and methodological traditions of their subject areas and focusing on various themes in various arenas. The research was characterised by not having health promotion as its main focus, but only including it as a minor aspect of the studies.

On this diverse background the formation of the research group Health Promotion has established communication between researchers and coordination between the different research activities, and has provided the basis for a new independent research agenda for health promotion at Roskilde University.

Contact: Bettina Dybbroe
E-mail: tibet@ruc.dk
Telephone: (+45) 4674 2339/ (+45) 4674 2659