The health-promotion perspective in public-health plans in a Swedish region over three decades

The trend away from a health and medical care-based policy to a healthy public policy has taken place in Sweden rather later than in other West European countries. One of the first county councils to establish health-promotion plans was Vasternorrland. The aims of this study are to describe the contents of and analyze the changes over time in the five public-health plans in the county. The object of study for the policy analysis consists in these plans between 1978 and 2004. A deductive thematic content analysis was performed for each plan on the basis of the central determinants of health promotion. The positioning of the plans was determined using a theoretical framework (Beattie's modified model) founded in the dimensions of power (individual and collective) and governance (local, i.e. the municipalities, and central, i.e. the county council). The results show that the value attributed to good health was consistently high, but the means for attaining this goal have varied over time. The policy focus' of the measures in the plans have taken a cyclical path from individual empowerment to empowerment from a societal perspective, and back prioritizing of actions at an individual level. On the governance dimension, there has been a corresponding positional change over time from regional to local and then back to regional. Promoting the health of a population requires mutual interaction between the regional and local levels, in which both societal and individually oriented actions are prioritized.