How to improve participation in school oriented health promotion for disadvantaged parents

Abstract

Health promotion in the school setting is challenged by the fact that disadvantaged families with low economic, cultural and social resources do hardly participate in such programs. We investigated how to improve the reachability of disadvantaged parents in particular with migrant background. Motivators to improve participation in a particular health promotion program were identified by experts, and were put into practice in an elementary school in Switzerland. A number of 109 parents filled in a questionnaire about their motivation for participation. Parents with low motivation for participation indicated several decisive barriers: e.g. fear (not being able to help his/her child) and former discrimination experiences. However, the rate of participation improved from 26 to 49%, due to the implementation of the motivators. The results showed the importance of structural factors and network building to reach parents with high level of fear and low levels of motivation to participate in health promotion.