The stakes in francophone health promotion research

Abstract

to develop research programmes. They wish to build their own evaluation and development competencies, adapted to local needs and based on their own agendas. North–South partnerships exist, but they require delicate intercultural approaches (3) and are often subordinate to industrial countries’ agendas. The articles put together in this supplement of Promotion & Education constitute the follow-up to the discussions raised during the francophone international conference entitled ‘Health Promotion and Health Education: State of Knowledge and Research Needs’, which took place in Luxembourg on 8–9 February 2007 (4). This collective publication is self-explanatory. It contributes to francophone scientific dynamics by favouring shared knowledge and an openness to different realities and perspectives. As with the conference itself, this supplement aims to question ‘health promotion and health education’ research and action carried out in different countries, and to identify their successes, failures and limitations. Anglophone researchers (5) have shown, in literature reviews between 1995 and 2005, that health promotion research production varies across Europe. Northern European countries and the United Kingdom are the largest knowledge producers. From the 18,862 publications identified, only onethird are dedicated to health promotion, which corresponds to 6,935 publications. As much as 28% of publications are on disease prevention (screening and immunization). The most frequent topics of other publications are nutrition and