Research Project

CHANCE – Community Health Management to Enhance Behaviour

CHANCE based on the preliminary assumption that a community´s structure determines health information and perception of health information. Local community could be an innovative resource for health behaviour.

It had been supposed that in other EU countries, the structure of a community influences health information as well. All countries might provide different resources in their communities, e.g. relating to the economic and ecologic circumstances. So, it was supposed to find in different EU countries important resources and best practice concerning the perception of health information.

Chance described new pathways to enhance and support people on the long run to be well informed and to take responsibility for their own health especially social, cultural or economical disadvantaged groups such as elderly people, migrants and families.

Aims:

to compare different health information systems of the participating European countries
to analyse the communities` structure
to analyse health knowledge and perception of health messages, resources and needs of households esp. elderly, migrants and families with children
to initiate local networks
to implement specific community-related offers
to develop guidelines for Community Health Management

Communities in the countries

Dumbravita, near Timisoara, Romania
Eriksberg, near Uppsala, Sweden
Fulda-Südend and Kohlhaus in Fulda, Germany
Liverpool South Central in Liverpool, United Kingdom
Inner district RAF of Jelgava, Latvia
Schneiderviertel in the 11th district of Vienna, Austria

Results

The manual "Community Health Management" is a result of the project CHANCE. It is available in different languages: English, German, Latvian, Romanian and Swedish. The manual could be used by agencies, organizations and health promotion networks Europe-wide to link the available resources in a community to health management. After the introduction with regard to the subject matter, the manual presents 13 fundamental guidelines and illustrates project examples from the participating countries.