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World Health Organization (WHO)

Wolf has been engaged to develop Global Guidance for Healthy Workplaces which is part of the WHO healthy workplace initiative targeted to employers and employees worldwide. Click here for more information.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

The UNDP has engaged Wolf Kirsten as a consultant to craft and implement a national health promotion strategy for the Kingdom of Bahrain as part of the overall project to reduce the incidence of non-communicable diseases. The Ministry of Health is currently gathering national health profile data as part of the Bahrain Health Survey.

International Institute for Health Promotion (IIHP)

Wolf Kirsten is a founding member of the International Institute for Health Promotion (IIHP) at American University in Washington, DC and is currently coordinating IIHP activities in collaboration with American University. From 1994 to 2001 Wolf Kirsten managed the IIHP. During his eight-year tenure, Mr. Kirsten built up a network of health promotion experts hailing from Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East.

He also was the managing editor of Health Promotion: Global Perspectives a publication dedicated to highlighting health promotion efforts around the world. Published by the American Journal for Health Promotion, each issue contained a special focus such as policy, programming, communication, technology, research methods, country profiles, and regional highlights. Global Perspectives published contributions from Singapore, Latin America, China, India, Zimbabwe, Mexico, South Africa, Italy, Czech Republic, England, South Africa, Latvia, Japan, Brazil, Kenya, Uganda, and Thailand.

Bangkok Charter for
Health Promotion in a Globalized World

Nearly twenty years after the Ottawa Charter was drafted, a new and updated health promotion charter has been released in Bangkok at the 6th Global Conference on Health Promotion in 2005. Wolf Kirsten was one of the participating delegates in Bangkok.

The stakeholders involved, including governments, private sector, communities, academia, media, nongovernmental organizations, civil society and individuals – pointed to four major commitments to health for all:

1. Make the promotion of health central to the global development agenda
2. Make the promotion of health a core responsibility for all of government
3. Make the promotion of health a key focus of communities and civil society
4. Make the promotion of health a requirement for good corporate practices.

You can access the Bangkok Charter here.

International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE)

Mr. Kirsten has been consulting for the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (www.iuhpe.org) based in Paris, France. The IUHPE is half a century old and is the only global membership organisation entirely devoted to advancing public health through health promotion and health education. Through this partnership, Mr. Kirsten has had the privilege of working on the following projects that are part of the cooperative agreement between the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the IUHPE:

• Global Community Health Consortium Project
  Project Outcome: created a global consortium for effective community health promotion to develop policy recommendations and an exemplar protocol for strengthening community health promotion.
• Global Physical Activity Promotion Project
  Project Outcome: establishment of the Global Alliance on Physcial Activity which unites health-related NGOs with physical activity networks and initiatives, leading to a strong coordinated advocacy effort for physical activity. This includes advancing the World Health Organization “Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health”.
• Global Injury Prevention Project in conjunction with the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (based at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia)
  Project outcome: outlined a plan to address injury prevention and road safety as a global issue within the context of health promotion and education and formulated a “Resolution on the Role of Health Promotion in Road Traffic Injury Prevention” which was passed at the 18th World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education in Melbourne.
• Sub-Saharan African Cardiovascular Training Development Project
  Project Outcome: establishment of a training program on cardiovascular health in sub-Saharan Africa.