Beyond medical care: how health systems can address children's needs through health promotion strategies

Abstract

This paper describes an innovative approach that integrates community-based health promotion and disease prevention into a well-established pediatric medical care system. System components include a population-level focus in multiple service sectors, community coalitions, knowledge dissemination, and social marketing. The combination of these components is intended to bring about widespread changes in health/social policy and professional practice, which, in turn, should improve health behavior and outcomes. Early lessons are discussed.