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.

Research using salutogenic factors to promote health is extensive. Salutogenesis, and its coreconcept 'sense of coherence' (SOC), is a resource-oriented theory and framework, applicable indifferent contexts. Research combining health promotion and doctoral supervision in higher educationis scarce. This article places research supervision in a broader context of sustainable workinglife by focusing on stress management. It is about health promotion in an area of research supervision,a new approach not described earlier. Research on supervision in general is extensive,focusing on co-generative mentoring, counselling and coaching. A new salutogenic model, 'TheCollegial Model', is presented as an example of practical application. The aim of the present articleis to introduce and discuss how the salutogenic theory and model of health can be applied to researchsupervision of postgraduate students. Knowledge about how SOC impacts health andlearning has benefit from a systematic review on salutogenic research covering published papersfrom 1992 to 2003 and until today. 'The Collegial Model' examines fundamental characteristics ofsupervision related to ethics and sense of coherence: relations, communication, processes, reciprocity,reflection, learning, comprehensibility, manageability, meaningfulness and coherence.Principles for carrying out supervision 'the salutogenic way' are suggested. The conclusion is thatdoctoral supervision involves mutual learning processes between colleagues in the supervisoryteam. Supervision has to be theory driven, implying that supervisors could benefit from applyinga salutogenic way of thinking and working, particularly in development of guidelines for researchsupervision.

Twenty years have passed since the philosophy and principals were formulated in the Ottawa Charter for health promotion. A critical reflection of the content and success of the Ottawa Charter was published before the IUHPE World Conference in Vancover in June 2007. This paper contextualizes and discusses Salutogenesis and Antonovsky in the development of health promotion practice and research and, further, relates the salutogenic concept Sense of Coherence (SOC) to the Ottawa Charter. An overview of the development of health promotion and the salutogenic theory of health is presented. In addition, this is illustrated in a new way using the metaphors of ‘health in the river of life’ and ‘SOC in a life course perspective’. Health promotion, including the Ottawa charter, lacks a clear theoretical foundation. The results of a systematic review of salutogenic research are used to demonstrate how the salutogenic framework could support the philosophical and practical intentions of the OC. The salutogenic model contributes to the maintenance and development of health and quality of life (QoL), i.e. the process and outcome of the principles of the OC. The metaphor of the river and the life cycle are new ways of demonstrating the paradigm shift provided by the Salutogenesis and health promotion in relation to public health and medicine. The salutogenic theory is an important contribution to the theory base of health promotion research and practice.

More than 20 years have passed since the American-Israeli medical sociologist Aaron Antonovsky introduced his salutogenic theory ‘sense of coherence’ as a global orientation to view the world, claiming that the way people view their life has a positive influence on their health. Sense of coherence explains why people in stressful situations stay well and even are able to improve their health. The origin of salutogenesis derives from the interviews of Israeli women with experiences from the concentration camps of the Second World War who in spite of this stayed healthy. Sixty years after the Holocaust this paper aim to shed light on the salutogenic theory in the context of public health and health promotion. In addition, other approaches with salutogenic elements for the explanation of health are considered. A potential direction for public health of the early 21st century is proposed. The historical paradox is to honour the victims of the Holocaust and see the birth of post-modern public health and the salutogenic framework through the experience of its survivors in the ashes of Modernity.

Reorientation of healthcare services towards more efficient health promotion interventions is an urgent matter. Despite policies and guidelines being in place, it is the least developed key action area of the Ottawa charter. User involvement, or the voice of the patient, is missing from the knowledge base of health promotion in the mental healthcare services. The aim of this study was to add experiential knowledge from former patients. We explored the lived experience of 12 former inpatients at a mental healthcare hospital. We describe what they perceive as mental health promoting efforts. A salutogenic theoretical framework and the methodology of interpretative phenomenological analysis were used. The analysis revealed an appetite for learning in order to develop an in depth understanding of their former experiences. This was motivated by a desire to master daily life despite living with an illness and to increase health and well-being. The participants perceived the learning processes within the healthcare setting as mental health promoting. This craving for a better life is compatible with health promotion. It may turn out to be an opportunity to complement the curative activity of healthcare services with health promotion educational activities.

This article proposes to advance the connections between salutogenic theory and assets models for health improvement. There is a need to integrate their use in public health and health promotion so that their respective potentials can be fully developed. This requires their synergies to be made more explicit so that a more coherent approach can be taken to their utilization. A mechanism is therefore needed that helps to raise awareness of them and their value as a resource together. Bronfenbrenner's bioecological theory provides one framework that can support better integration of salutogenesis with the applied nature of assets-based models. This paper proposes a new 'synergy model for health' that integrates key concepts associated with salutogenic theory-generalized and specific resistance resources (GRRs/SRRs) and generalized and specific resistance deficits and the sense of coherence (SOC). In doing so, it highlights those GRRs and SRRs which are assets that, either individually or collectively, help to develop a stronger SOC. Higher levels of SOC can then support the transformations of potential resources into available assets (that people can understand, manage and make sense of), capable of producing positive health development. The proposed 'Synergy model of health' aims to contribute to a deeper theoretical understanding of health and development through the integration of the key elements of both salutogenesis and assets models. This can facilitate a better contextualization of the ideas into public health policy and practice by making the salutogenic theory more action-oriented and the assets model more theoretical.