25 health enhancement centres across Slovenia

National Institute of Public Health has been implementing the project ‘’Upgrade, development and implementation of prevention programmes in primary health care and local communities’’ which seeks to support a new, different approach to prevention programmes with a view to improving population health and reducing health inequalities in local community settings. The headline goal of the project is to improve knowledge and awareness, increase motivation and, in turn, participation of health care users in prevention programmes, and to make preventive services more accessible, more affordable and, last but not least, more targeted and tuned in to the needs of users. 

The key element of the project is the setting up of integrated health enhancement centres as stand-alone units in community health centres. The centres are key structures set up at the primary health care level to provide preventive health services and health promotion and education, health enhancement activities and activities aiming to reduce health inequalities in all population groups within local communities. The project pursues the following objectives:   

• strengthening the role of health community centres in ensuring healthy communities,
• delivering upgraded routine check-ups for children and youth,
• providing preventive interventions for children and young people at risk,
• implementing integrated chronic disease prevention activities at the primary health care level,
• integrating vulnerable populations in preventive health care, and
• rolling out the integrated approach model for strengthening health and reducing health inequalities in local communities.

Health enhancement centres have received about EUR 15.5 million in support from the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund.

More about the project

Health Enhancement Centre, a stand-alone unit in the Postojna Community Health Centre ensures appropriate and well-equipped premises which enable upgrading, development and implementation of preventive programmes at primary care level. Great emphasis is put on reaching out to and integrating vulnerable individuals, children and young people at risk and other population groups in the area of municipalities Postojna and Pivka.

Head of the Health Enhancement Centre Ana Žužek Barle speaks highly of the project and adds that it creates added value for local community residents, especially vulnerable groups: ‘’Our engagement and activities in the local community take us one step further to our main goal, which is to reduce health inequalities. Family-based obesity treatment programme represents an especially important strand of our work, it helps us provide comprehensive interventions by reaching out to children and their parents and addressing obesity-related issues.’’