Evaluation of a workplace cardiovascular health promotion programme in the Republic of Ireland ANN McMAHON, CECILY C. KELLEHER, GERALDINE HELLY and ELAINE DUFFY

Workplace health promotion may be defined as the application of the concepts, principles and strategies enshrined in the Ottawa Charter to both the ‘community’ of employees and managers, and to the organizational and environmental aspects of the workplace itself [World Health Organization (WHO, 1991)]. The workplace is seen as a natural setting in which to reach individuals (Chu et al., 1997). Comprehensive workplace health promotion, according to Wilson and colleagues, stated that a multi-level approach should be devised to integrate individual-, organizationaland community-level strategies (Wilson et al., 1996). There have been successive and competing models of workplace health promotion activities in different countries and jurisdictions over many years. This has depended to a large degree on the provisions made for occupational health and safety services in different contexts and situations, and also on the emphasis placed on health education more generally in the community. Our best intuitive guess,