Volume 22, No. 3/4
2001

[Table of Contents]

Book Review

Evaluating Health Promotion: Practice and Methods

Edited by Margaret Thorogood and Yolande Coombes
London (England): Oxford University Press, 2000;
184 pp; ISBN 0-19-263169-1; $43.75 (CDN)

Edited by two members of the Health Promotion Research Unit of the Department of Public Health and Policy in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with contributions from their colleagues in the Unit, this book is a timely contribution to the debate about evaluation in health promotion. It provides clear descriptions of key methods and their limitations and strengths, as well as examples of their use. It also provides a context for these materials by discussing the concepts and development of health promotion and evaluation as fields.

The position that the editors and authors take on evaluation in the book are pluralistic, eclectic and very much in keeping with current advanced thinking in health promotion. Similar positions are expressed in a number of recent documents, including a recently released book on evaluation in health promotion published by the European Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) edited by myself and members of a WHO-EURO Working Group on Health Promotion Evaluation. The unique contribution of this book is the clarity with which the arguments are presented and the practical examples that illustrate the points the authors make. The chapters on historical approaches to evaluation and on simulation models were particularly interesting.

On the other hand, as is true of any book of this nature, this one has its limitations. For one, it tends to draw its material mainly from the United Kingdom, although it does from time to time refer to material from other countries, including the United States and Canada. For another, although it does refer to "participative" or, as we tend to call it, "participatory" research, in my view it does not give it the prominence that it deserves in the context of a book about evaluation in health promotion. Perhaps a chapter on this topic might be a useful addition to the next edition of the book, as this approach is not only very compatible with health promotion, but also has features, such as special ethical issues, of which anyone studying or working in health promotion should be aware.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent book that provides a fine introduction to evaluation issues in health promotion for both students and practitioners, and I would recommend it highly to these audiences.

Irving Rootman, PhD
Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences and  Director, Centre for Health Promotion
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario

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