title: The Well-being Profile--an Internet tool for school health promotion.
abstract: For years, the WHO has, in accordance with the 'settings' idea, encouraged a whole school approach when trying to promote health and well-being in schools. This developmental study analyses the implementation and pilot phase experiences of a holistic well-being evaluation tool for schools, the School Well-being Profile, on the Internet. The Profile is based on the theoretically established School Well-being Model. The School Well-being Profile consists of electronic survey forms and an automatic facility that analyses and produces results on the data in graphic and numeric form. After the data has been entered, the primary user within the school can immediately view and print out the results. The figures can be compared with the averages of all schools to pinpoint areas where well-being is different from that in the other schools. The Profile resides on a Finnish National Board of Education server (www2.edu.fi/hyvinvointiprofiili) and its use is free of charge for all schools. The Profile became popular in its first year: it was used by 33 primary schools, 28 lower secondary schools and 9 upper secondary schools with a total of 9,169 respondents. Overall, 94% of the students and 99% of the personnel expressed that it had been at least fairly easy to fill in the questionnaire. The paper shows that theoretical research in health promotion can effectively be put into practice using information technology tools. The project that produced the School Well-being Profile ended in 2004, yet the WWW-Profile continues to gain new users. The school administrators, personnel and students have found the Profile easy to use and worth the time and effort invested by the school. The strategies adopted in the design and dissemination of the Profile seem to have been successful in providing a sustainable resource to contribute to the future promotion of well-being in schools.
authors.affiliation: Tampere School of Public Health, University of Tampere, Finland. tomi.lintonen@pakk.poliisi.fi
authors.forename: Tomi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lintonen
authors.forename: A I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Konu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006694:Holistic Health; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011788:Quality of Life; D012572:School Health Services; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires