Rehabilitation and health promotion
According to the World Health Organization, about 15 percent of the world's population lives with a disability and the number of people living with periodic or chronic impairment is increasing. More knowledge about health promotion and rehabilitation action along the life-course is needed.
Health promotion implies putting health on the agenda of policy makers across sectors, directing them towards building healthy public policy. It also implies creating supportive environments that generate safe, stimulating and satisfying living and working conditions. Health promotion is about strengthening community actions in setting priorities, empowerment, and ownership and control, and flexible systems for strengthening participation in health matters. Furthermore, it is about developing personal and social skills through providing information, education for health, and enhancing life skills. Finally, health promotion is about reorienting health services, where the responsibility is shared among individuals, community groups, health professionals, health service institutions and governments.
Furthermore, the research group focuses on Rehabilitation 2030 Call for action areas at sub-national, national and global levels about: 1. Creating strong leadership and political support for rehabilitation. 2. Strengthening its planning & implementation, including within emergency preparedness and response. 3. Improving integration of rehabilitation into the health sector and across sectors. 4. Incorporating rehabilitation in Universal Health Coverage. 5. Building comprehensive and equitable rehabilitation service models that include assistive products and reach underserved areas. 6. Developing a strong multidisciplinary, context-sensitive rehabilitation workforce, and promoting its concepts across all health workforce education. 7. Expanding rehabilitation financing. 8. Enhance health information systems including rehabilitation data and information on functioning (ICF). 9. Building research capacity. 10. Strengthening partnerships, particularly between low-, middle- and high-income countries.
The research group members belong to different health- and social sciences’ professions and disciplines including occupational therapy, physiotherapy, nursing, epidemiology, health economy, pedagogy, sociology, anthropology, political sciences a.o. and research on the above-mentioned areas to enable people’s best possible functioning and coping, independence, and participation in everyday activities in the different contexts and environments where they live . They address the development, implementation, and effect of various measures as well as cultural and structural conditions for rehabilitation and health-promotion.
The research group has the following research areas:
- Reablement. Effectiveness studies and qualitative interviews of family caregivers, users and health professionals
- Global perspectives on healthy ageing Global perspectives on health promotion and rehabilitation
- Health promotion and rehabilitation along the life-course
- Ageing and health
- Health economy, health priorities, ageing and rehabilitation
- Health equity and refugee health
- Data-Driven Rehabilitation and artificial intelligence
- Impact of conflict and disasters on rehabilitation health systems and health professionals
