Health promotion in European schools: a report on its monitoring

Abstract

In 1991, the World Health Organization launched the European Network of Health Promoting Schools. Subsequently, in 2017, the Schools for Health in Europe (SHE) was created with the aim of improving the health of children and young people in Europe through a specific focus on schools. Several European countries are part of this network and have created the health promoting schools’ approach to implement structured and systematic health promotion plans in schools. SHE monitors the implementation of school health in member countries, producing a report that includes those countries’ data. This article presents an analysis of the latest 2020 monitoring reports from 14 European Union countries. The study used a qualitative approach through the documentary analysis technique. The analysis concludes that although many schools in the European Union are health promoting, not all of them follow the health education approach in planning their activities. The main topics addressed are physical activity, ex aequo with healthy eating. It is possible to identify the main facilitator of health promotion in schools: intersectoral collaboration between the health and education sectors. Finally, the main barrier to the implementation of health promotion is the feeling of overload expressed by the teachers.