John Allegrante, Chair of Teachers College’s Department of Health and Behavior Studies, has co-edited special issues of the journals Health Education & Behavior and Global Health Promotion that focus on strengthening standards and quality assurance in health education and health promotion.

The 10 articles featured in the journals, which include three written by Allegrante, were published online on May 15th. The special issues stem from a conference convened in Galway, Ireland, that Allegrante co-chaired in June 2008 that gathered some of the leading scholars and practitioners in the field to develop an international consensus on the core competencies that health education and promotion professionals need in order to effectively deal with often-complex health issues they face around the world. The conference resulted in the development of what’s become known in the field as the Galway Consensus -- a set of eight domains of core competency for health promotion and health education specialists.

 

The articles cover the background leading up to the Galway conference and explore such issues as the similarities and differences in terminology and definitions related to global credentialing systems for health promotion; efforts to strengthen workforce capacity and continuing education in health education and health promotion; and the Galway Consensus statement enumerating the eight domains of core competency.

Health Education and Behavior is the flagship journal of the Society for Public Health and Education (SOPHE) and Global Health Promotion is a publication of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE). In 1997-98, Allegrante served as president of SOPHE; he currently sits on the editorial board of Health Education Research.

 

Both issues are available online at http://heb.sagepub.com/pap.dtl and http://ped.sagepub.com/pap.dtl.