The Salut Child-Health Intervention Programme

In 2005, the health authorities of Region Västerbotten initiated the Salut Programme. The initiative got its name from the word “salutogenic” as the basic idea is to promote processes that give children and their parents an opportunity to increase control over their health and ability to improve it. Since 2009/2010 it is a countywide ongoing universal health promotion intervention in a variety of sectors for parents and children 0-18 years, starting already during pregnancy. The Programme has been implemented since 2006 onwards, prompted by alarming reports of child overweight/obesity and trends of increased dental caries, already during preschool age. The programme has been developed and implemented in close collaboration with antenatal care, child health care, dental services, open preschools and schools. The Programme aims to support and strengthen initiated and ongoing health promotion interventions, and universal preventive interventions to improve health and lifestyle among expectant parents and children. The main focus areas are: to promote healthy eating habits, physical activity and good psychosocial health, and to prevent obesity and caries. In other words, the Programme combines both health promotion and universal prevention interventions in order to improve health and well-being, as well as to avoid ill health and disease for the whole population. To achieve the aforementioned aims, the Salut Programme includes a package of interventions using a family-centred approach. The interventions are integrated within ordinary public services. Programme development, implementation and dissemination have been carried out stepwise, with respect to geography, which facilitates evaluation efforts. The Programme has stepwise become a quite unique infrastructure to research on children, their parents and their living conditions. The Programme is followed and evaluated using registers, surveys, interviews, observations and records, and has generated 3 doctoral thesis and 26 international peer-reviewed articles. Purpose: One of the aims is to evaluate the short and long-term results of the Salut Programme in relation to the public health policy goals: maximizing public health and improving health equity while obtaining value for the money. Another aim is to pave the way for children's right to good and equal health by increasing the knowledge regarding preschool children's social-emotional problems.