Review of Health Ⅶ Project for disease prevention and control by means of health promotion in Shanghai

Health Ⅶ Project was first implemented and financed by the international organizations in Shanghai from 1996 to 2002. It is an innovative, representative and advanced project of preventing and controlling non-communicable disease (NCD) by means of health promotion. The project subverted the traditional means and methods in chronic disease prevention and control, introduced the advanced international theory and methods, and explored the health promotion methods suitable for China's national conditions in NCD, STD/AIDS and accidental injuries prevention and control. These yielded good project results and effective experiences were expected to be generalized widely.
The project consisted of four aspects:organization development and policy reform, human resource development, surveillance and intervention, which were linked up each other and mutually promoted. The strategies design adopted principles of localization focusing on health promotion, intervention different in strategies to specific risk factors and for different targeted population, emphasis on the implementation framework of comprehensive intervention. The project had not only achieved distinct results, but also introduced and localized an advanced international health promotion idea and methods of NCD prevention and control. And innovatively were developed successful integrated NCD control pattern, implementation framework and technical route. Meanwhile, a team of professionals in NCD prevention and control had been trained.
Considering the sustainability, the study suggests five critical links and three sustainable development factors in NCD comprehensive prevention. Proposals are given as to how to integrate health education and health promotion into disease prevention and control.