In search of success in health promotion and alcohol education.

In this Supplement to Patient Education and Counseling, specialists in the areas of health promotion and alcohol education have provided reviews of health promotion and prevention programs with relevance for alcohol education. As Editor-in-Chief of Patient Education and Counseling I am glad that we can offer this Supplement with such a focus on a topic so relevant for our journal: projects and programs designed to promote health by raising knowledge, influencing attitudes and promoting behavior change. Two papers discuss obesity prevention programs; one paper describes educational programs in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention, and one paper concerns road safety education. Finally, there is one article which explicitly reviews alcohol education programs, in this case alcohol education programs in schools. In all these papers the authors attempt to identify criteria of success. The authors review what we have learned from all the different programs in terms of successful implementation of measures to promote health and healthy behaviors across a broad specter of programs. In one of the two papers on obesity prevention, Goldberg and Wright review three obesity prevention campaigns [1]. The programs include the Sisters Together: Move More Eat Better, in three inner city communities in Boston, the Shape Up Somerville program, also located in the greater Boston area and the EPODE program. EPODE is an acronym in French language for Ensemble Prévenons l’Obésité Des Enfants (Together Let’s Prevent Childhood Obesity). The Sisters Together program aimed to promote healthy lifestyles among young adult African-American women. Throughout program design and implementation, qualitative research was performed in order to secure an implementation of the program based on actual experiences of providers and users of the program. While the target group in Sisters Together was young women, the aim of the Shape up Somerville program was to prevent weight gains in children grade 1 through 3 [1]. Hatfield and colleagues discuss this program, more in detail in their contribution [2]. They conclude that the Sommerville experience highlights the importance of two-ways-communication, or perhaps rather multi-wayscommunication, with all stakeholders, with an emphasis on engaging community members at many different levels and through different channels of communication, supported and sustained though local partnership [2]. Whereas both Sisters Together and Shape Up Sommerville were restricted to one single community, the EPODE program is a large collaborative effort which has expanded to 29 countries worldwide