Has the Development of Health Promotion Competencies Made a Difference? A Scoping Review of the Literature

Abstract

Introduction. Competency-based approaches have been developed in health promotion over the past four decades but, to date, there has been limited focus on the evaluation of their use and impact. In 2016, 5 years after publication of the CompHP Core Competencies Framework for Health Promotion, an evaluation of their use and impact across the health promotion community in Europe was initiated. As a first step in this process, a scoping review of the literature was undertaken which aimed to explore the current status of health promotion competencies, with a particular focus on developments in Europe and ascertain what evidence exists about the use and impact of health promotion competencies on practice, education, and training. Method. Searches of the electronic databases and gray literature were conducted between February 2016 and December 2017. The searches were limited to sources published in English between 2009 and 2017, which focused on health promotion competencies. Results. A total of 39 sources were identified for in-depth analysis, of which 26 were theoretical papers and 13 were papers reporting on empirical studies. Many of the sources presented health promotion competency frameworks or described their development. Some examples of the use of health promotion competencies were found but only two instances of their evaluation were identified. Conclusions. The review found few empirical studies on the implementation and use of health promotion competencies and highlights a lack of evaluation studies on their impact on practice, education, and training.