Maria Piotrowicz

The DETERMINE project (2007–2010) was coordinated by EuroHealth-Net and there were 24 countries involved. It was an EU consortium for action on the socio-economic determinants of health (SDH). The overall objective was to mobilize action for health equity in the European Union, especially through achieving greater awareness and capacity amongst decision makers in all policy sectors to take health and health equity into consideration when developing policy and to strengthen collaboration between health and other sectors.
Several phases of activities were carried out e.g.: identification of actions and policies addressing the socio-economic determinants of health inequalities (SDHI) in UE member states, recognition of innovative approaches in the context of SDH and selection of three small pilot projects with promising approach, consultations with politicians and policy makers outside the health sector on their attitude towards SDHI and their role in achieving health equity, identification of economic analyses addressing SDHI. There were also capacity building and awareness raising activities carried out by DETERMINE partners, such us: skills development, partnership development, leadership, awareness raising and
advocacy.

In Poland, the issue of required preparation and professional status of people working in health promotion (HP) is not specified in detail and existing rules are not transparent. An important aspect of professionalization of the field should be strong embedding in the theoretical framework. Furthermore, the term "theory and evidence-based" used in relation to HP and health education (HE) interventions is getting popularity. This paper is a thematic draft which discusses several issues subjectively assessed as constitutive for the professionalization of the HP field. It presents: professions related to HP; fundamental differences between HP and HE; theoretical forms in HP; the importance of theory in HP; selected theoretical concepts on disease, health and health behaviors. Particular attention was paid to the concepts that were considered the key to understanding the philosophy and specificity of HP and therefore should be the starting point in acquiring essential competences to professional performance.