Health Sciences

PROLEAD: Health Promotion Leadership Development Program

Researchers: Professor Vivian Lin and Sally Fawkes

Funding: WHO (Kobe Centre)

Research Partners: Participating country teams, projects, and their mentoring institutions

Status of the project: Prolead I and Prolead II (Completed); Prolead III (Current)

Summary

The role of School of Public Health, La Trobe University (Professor Vivian Lin and Sally Fawkes) has been to undertake research about best practice models for leadership development as an input to the design of the Prolead pilot program and develop, implement and evaluate arrangements for individual and institutional mentoring.

The revised tool from the pilot programs (Prolead III) in December 2006 will be used in a further Prolead program later in 2007.

Background

Integration of health promotion in health systems development and health sector reform was identified in the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office Regional Framework for Health Promotion (2002-2005) as one of its five priority areas for action. To support the Framework, a Regional agenda for capacity building for health promotion was formulated in 2002 which emphasised the development of leaders who could drive the process of generating appropriate and sustainable infrastructure and financing for health promotion.

Prolead was designed in response to this agenda in 2003-2004 as a program for leaders who promote health. It develops leadership by encouraging leaders to work together and creating a learning and mentoring environment for problem-solving and strategic decision-making that will result in the scaling up of health promotion to levels where an impact on health can be expected. Through a combination of coursework and country-based team projects, Pr olead aims to enhance practical skills across five categories (intra-personal qualities, interpersonal qualities, cognitive skills, communication skills and task-specific skills) to improve governance for health promotion. A pilot program of Prolead was implemented in 2004-2005 with the support of the Government of Japan and School of Public Health, La Trobe University. The pilot was a collaborative effort of WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific and the South East Asian Ministers of Education Organisational Tropical Medicine Network (SEAMEO-TROPMED Network). Countries involved in the pilot were China, Fiji, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines and Tonga.

Prolead has developed into a multi-regional program for leaders who promote health. Prolead II will operate in 2005-2006 as a collaborative capacity building project initiated by the WHO Centre for Health Development (WHO Kobe Centre) and the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO) with participation from the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO) and the Southeast Asian Regional Office (SEARO). The countries involved are India, Japan, Lebanon, Oman, Republic of Korea and Vietnam. SEAMEO TROPMED is also taking part.

Prolead II is designed for teams of leaders from various countries who are focused on scaling-up effective interventions through autonomous and sustainable infrastructure and financing for the promotion of health. Emphasis is placed on addressing these issues within the challenging context of globalization, industrialisation and urbanization.

Prolead II has maintained the original format of a nine-month program on applied team leadership and management. It involves coursework offered in three modules to allow for flexibility to suit work demands and availability. Participants carry out projects in country-based teams using tools introduced during the coursework portion of the course. Mentoring of individuals and country-based teams is available and draws on the experience and commitment of international partners.

Prolead country projects

Prolead I (Pilot)

In general, country projects undertaken by the first cohort of Prolead fellows were concerned with enhancing an area of general weakness in the Western Pacific Region - mobilising partnerships and autonomous financing to build health promotion infrastructure. Project mentoring was made available from several leading health promotion bodies – VicHealth, Swiss Health Promotion Foundation, ThaiHealth, and Australian Centre for Health Promotion. In brief, country projects focussed on the following themes:

Legislative and executive branches of government (Philippines)

Work was undertaken to develop the lobbying skills of National Centre for Health Promotion staff in order to move forward the process for creating a health promotion foundation.

State and private sector partnership (Malaysia)

The aim of project was to increase participation of health-related NGOs, sports and arts organizations in health promotion through advocacy and partnership development for the Malaysia Health Promotion Foundation. A national seminar, supported from Rockefeller Foundation funds, brought potential partners of government together to mobilise support across the private and informal sectors for health promotion.

National and local levels of governance (Fiji)

Steps to improve intersectoral partnership in health promotion through increasing awareness of health promotion amongst health sector managers and external partners/stakeholders, revision of the existing Community Organisation Development process and training of relevant staff. These steps were seen as integral to instituting a legal framework for health promotion ie passing a Health Promotion Bill by Parliament for establishment of a health promotion foundation in Fiji.

Academics and implementers (Shanghai, China)

Possible regulation for the Shanghai Foundation of Health Promotion was prepared, and included general principles, conditions of establishing the foundation, registration procedures, organization structure and operation of the foundation. Partners engaged to assist the project included the School of Public Health, Fudan University that played a complementary, professional supportive role.

Health educators and health policy advocates (Mongolia)

A set of implemented activities (needs assessment, broadcasted round table discussions, production of advocacy tools and CDs) combined to elevate the profile of health promotion as a key area of investment in Mongolia and mobilised support. Activities engaged Ministry of Health departments, Mongolian Public Health Professional Association, public health stakeholders at primary and secondary levels and national public health committees. A bill proposing an hypothecated tax of 2% was successfully passed as a result of the efforts of Prolead fellows.

Political leaders and career civil servants (Tonga)

Against a context in which strategies to prevent and control non-communicable diseases were being implemented, a NCD Committee and a Sub Committee were established, existing Health Promotion Division staff were trained and a workshop was conducted that covered the feasibility of and process for setting up a health promotion foundation in Tonga, health financing and the strategic relationship of Millennium Development Goals to Tonga's population health profile.

Each of these country projects involved participants in working on some core challenges facing health promotion leaders, such as understanding and engaging with the processes of policy change and building institutional relationships within and beyond the health sector. In the terms of the Ottawa Charter, the challenges reflected within these case studies related to complementary tasks; developing healthy public policy; and re-orienting health services.

Some additional initial observations from the pilot program of Prolead suggested the following learnings and helped to set the agenda for Prolead II.

• An emphasis on the more dynamic process of strategic thinking (versus more traditional strategic planning) enables leaders to innovate and apply simple management tools to navigate through complex organizational and environmental issues;
• Components and dimensions of health governance can be the criteria to which standards of interventions may be measured for effectiveness;
• Social technology, such as social mobilization, advocacy and demand for health promotion may be viewed as products of good governance;
• Country-based teams are critical, particularly in helping to forge working relationships with in-country health promotion partners;
• Individual and project mentoring requires time, commitment and resources, for bridging the geographical, cultural, and interpersonal barriers.

These observations contributed both to the development of Prolead II as a global program and to re-focusing the health promotion capacity building challenge (particularly in relation to leadership development) to the core process underpinning system dynamics - governance for health. Prolead II is now being implemented with participation from Japan, Korea, Vietnam, India, Oman, and Lebanon.

PROLEAD: WHO Health Promotion Leadership Development Program, Evaluation Report for the WHO Kobe centre (2006)

Prolead II

Participating country teams, projects, and their mentoring institutions, were as follows:

Revitalising health promotion in Oman (Oman).
Mentored by Bertino Somaini and Health Promotion Switzerland – Switzerland.

Creating a mechanism to coordinate media coverage of health issues (Lebanon).
Mentored by Bushra Jabre and the Johns Hopkins Centre for Communication Programs - USA.

Advocacy and development of partnership for a health promotion foundation in Bangalore (India).
Mentoring under negotiation.

Mental health promotion for emergency room staff in Kobe and Promoting food safety in disaster management plans in Hyogo Prefecture (Japan).
Mentored by WHO Kobe Centre.

Building consensus on the strategic vision for the health promotion fund (Republic of Korea).
Mentored by Joe Hafey and the Public Health Institute, California - USA.

Involving stakeholders in health promotion (Vietnam).
Mentored by City of Kuching, Malaysia.

Enhancing human resource development in health promotion (SEAMEO-TROPMED).
Supported by La Trobe University, Deakin University, University of NSW - Australia.

 

Further information:

WHO Centre for Health Development, Kobe

http://www.who.or.jp/prolead.html

WHO Regional Office of Western Pacific

http://www.prolead.org

 

Research Outputs to date:

Conference Presentations

Publications

Unpublished Reports

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Public Health Practice - Research
Areas of Research:International
Staff profile: Professor Vivian Lin