Preventive healthcare and health promotion policies exemplify how public administrations can serve the common good by leveraging human intelligence, institutional capacity, and community engagement. Governing these policies requires inclusive, multilevel coordination, intersectoral collaboration, and participatory mechanisms that strengthen resilience, reduce social inequalities, and promote sustainable well-being.
Concretely, the implementation of national guidelines on prevention and health promotion combined with the simultaneous conception and deployment of own local strategies of preventive healthcare and health promotion tailored to local conditions poses comprehensive governance challenges for the responsible public administrations. Firstly, they need sufficient administrative capacity (including the ability to develop and select locally adapted health strategies, organizational and management skills, personnel, finances, technical and material infrastructure, and knowledge). Secondly, they are reliant on intensive coordination and cooperation with public institutions, policy actors, and stakeholders in different sectors or fields of public action (e.g., health, education, welfare, urban planning, environment, housing) and at different levels. Thirdly, they must win over citizens to participate in the implementation and/or co-production of relevant policies, e.g. through empathetic and needs-sensitive case work, through measures tailored to the needs of specific groups, or through campaigns and opportunities for participation.
Human intelligence is a key resource in all three dimensions of the governance challenge. Administrative decision-makers – in cooperation with administrative actors at all hierarchical levels – are called upon to develop intelligent strategic solutions based on existing capacities, enabling policy implementation that is sensitive to local conditions and can respond agilely to changes in those conditions. Conflict sensitivity and the ability to trust, which stem from human intelligence, are important for coordinative governance. And human intelligence, e.g., in the context of municipal decision-making or as a street-level bureaucrat, also makes it possible to respond sensitively to the needs of populations, groups, and individuals.
The PSG8 will examine the prerequisites and conditions for successful regional and municipal governance of preventive healthcare and health promotion. We focus on the conditions for success in the three dimensions of the health prevention and promotion governance challenge. Of interest is the governance of policies to maintain and promote both physical health (nutrition, physical activity, smoking prevention) and mental health (well-being, resilience).