The promotion of healthy universities : a systematic review

© 2018 Dr. Marta Reis, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Universities are important organizations in what concerns the creation and improvement of health and wellbeing, thus healthy universities represent a key application of the health-promoting settings approach. The healthy Universities concept has a strong theoretical basis, and it appears appealing amongst universities worldwide. However, the way in which the approach has been implemented remains poorly grounded in theory. This systematic review aims to describe how universities have implemented the Healthy Universities concept in different cultures. In order to achieve this aim, we analyzed the following aspects of the implementation of the Health Promoting University: (a) definition of Healthy University; (b) priority areas of action; (c) subject matters; (d) projects and coordination; and (e) project evaluation and possible results. PsycINFO, ISI Web of Knowledge, ISI Proceedings, PubMed, Medline, Lilacs and Scielo were searched for articles on Health Promoting Universities, published between 1997 and 2017. Studies detailing the implementation of a Health Promoting University approach were included. Results: Fourteen studies were identified for in-depth analysis. Of those, four were theoretical papers, and ten were intervention studies. The programs described in the selected studies are mostly based on the guidelines of the Edmonton Charter. They incorporated the main areas of action and subject matters proposed by the Healthy Universities framework. The implementation of healthy policies and the incorporation of health promotion in the curriculum remain challenging. The review suggests that most of the universities work towards similar goals, relying on the Healthy Universities framework, yet that the way in which initiatives are implemented depends on the context.