Improving health in populations where the quality of health is poor is a complex process. This book argues that the traditional government approach of exhorting individuals to live healthier lifestyles is not enough. Action to promote public health needs to take place not just through public agencies, but also by engaging community assets and resources in their broadest sense. This book reports on lessons from the experience of planning, establishing, and delivering such action by the five-year Sustainable Health Action Research Programme (SHARP) in Wales. The book concludes by indicating the connections between SHARP and earlier traditions of community-based action, and argues the need to be bolder in approaches to community-based health improvement, as well as the need to be more flexible in understanding of developments in health policy.
