Future directions for the concept of salutogenesis: A position articleShow others and affiliations
2020 (English)In: Health Promotion International, ISSN 0957-4824, E-ISSN 1460-2245, Vol. 35, no 2, p. 187-195Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Aaron Antonovsky advanced the concept of salutogenesis almost four decades ago (Antonovsky, Health, Stress and Coping. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, 1979; Unravelling the Mystery of Health. Jossey-Bass,San Francisco, CA, 1987). Salutogenesis posits that life experiences shape the sense of coherence (SOC)VC that helps to mobilize resources to cope with stressors and manage tension successfully (determiningone's movement on the health Ease/Dis-ease continuum). Antonovsky considered the three-dimensionalSOC (i.e. comprehensibility, manageability, meaningfulness) as the key answer to his question about theorigin of health. The field of health promotion has adopted the concept of salutogenesis as reflected in theinternational Handbook of Salutogenesis (Mittelmark et al., The Handbook of Salutogenesis. Springer,New York, 2016). However, health promotion mostly builds on the more vague, general salutogenic orientation that implies the need to foster resources and capacities to promote health and wellbeing. Tostrengthen the knowledge base of salutogenesis, the Global Working Group on Salutogenesis (GWG-Sal)of the International Union of Health Promotion and Education produced the Handbook of Salutogenesis.During the creation of the handbook and the regular meetings of the GWG-Sal, the working group identified four key conceptual issues to be advanced: (i) the overall salutogenic model of health; (ii) the SOC concept; (iii) the design of salutogenic interventions and change processes in complex systems; (iv) the application of salutogenesis beyond health sector. For each of these areas, we first highlight Antonovsky'soriginal contribution and then present suggestions for future development. These ideas will help guideGWG-Sal's work to strengthen salutogenesis as a theory base for health promotion.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford University Press, 2020. Vol. 35, no 2, p. 187-195
Keywords [en]
Salutogenesis, sense of coherence, positive health, salutogenic interventions
National Category
Medical and Health Sciences Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology
Research subject
NURSING AND PUBLIC HEALTH SCIENCE, Public health science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-13123DOI: 10.1093/heapro/daz057ISI: 000565878900002PubMedID: 31219568Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85085532089OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hv-13123DiVA, id: diva2:1262675
2018-11-122018-11-122021-04-24Bibliographically approved