The overarching concept of salutogenesis in the context of health care

Abstract

Two concepts that widely impact on our ways to work with health is health promotion and salutogenesis (For a quick overview of the concept of salutogenesis, read Lindström B. & Eriksson M. (2010). The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Salutogenesis. Folkhälsan Research Center). The concept of health promotion was voted for use by the participants of World Health Organization (WHO) general assembly in 1978. And after 8 years, the concept of health promotion was filled with content by the WHO meeting in Ottawa in 1986. Meanwhile, salutogenesis as a concept was constructed of the Israeli scientist Antonovsky during the 1970s. It can be said that both health promotion and salutogenesis grew out of a wanting to understand health development rather than understanding health as a variable tied to the presence or absence of disease developments. This chapter concentrates on discussing the use of the salutogenic framework on the understanding of health care situations.