Early in 1991, a unique public/private partnership program was launched to focus on the accomplishments of University of California research faculty working in the broad area of health promotion and disease prevention. Initiated with a small gift from Health Net, a California-based HMO, to the Office of the Vice President for Health Affairs at UC, a Steering Committee composed of faculty was appointed to issue an annual Call for Abstracts to all levels of UC faculty to compete for selection as a Wellness Lecture awardee, in hopes of stimulating original papers on different critical issues in public health with an emphasis on wellness. By 1997, the Wellness Lectures Program, supported by a grant from The California Wellness Foundation, had become well-established. The collaboration between The Foundation and the University of California challenged UC faculty to develop research-based strategies and public policies to bring health promotion perspectives into the mainstream of public health practice and healthcare delivery. The California Wellness Foundation (TCWF) was created to improve the health of the people of California and facilitate the development of public policies that support health promotion and disease prevention.
With an emphasis on five key areas, the TCWF grant promoted faculty research on:
Award paper topics included "Media Advocacy: A Strategy for Advancing Policy and Promoting Health," "Ethical Challenges for Health Promotion in the 1990s," "Health Care Quality Report Cards: Are They Accurate and Useful?," " Smoking Cessation: Community Interventions for Latinos," "Adolescent Sexuality and Health Care Reform," "A Model for Health Promotion in Ethnic Minority Families," "Immigrants May Hold Clues to Protecting Health During Pregnancy: Exploring a Paradox," "Prevention, Policy, and Paradox: What is the Value of Future Health?," "Reducing and Preventing Youth Violence: An Analysis of Causes and an Assessment of Successful Programs."
From 1991 through 1997, the Program awarded prizes to six faculty members each year for writing an original paper and presenting a public lecture drawn from the paper. The papers were then compiled into an annual publication and distributed free to several thousand policymakers, health professionals, gatekeepers, civic leaders, academics and other teachers, hospital personnel and health agency representatives, college libraries, and the general public.
In this way, a major objective of the program was accomplished: bringing the results of academic research to policymakers, practitioners in the field of public health, and civic leaders in several formats: widely publicized live lectures, printed manuscripts, and video- and audiotapes of the lectures. The Wellness Lectures contributed to improving health practices by providing a bridge between University-based research and the application of wellness concepts in clinical services and public health.
An important target audience of the Wellness Lectures was legislators and other elected officials. Special briefing sessions were hosted in the State capitol for legislators and their senior staffers, at which the Wellness Awardees discussed the policy implications of their work on managed care, access to health services, and legislative proposals pertaining to public health issues.
Among the critical accomplishments of the Program were the statewide conferences we sponsored addressing a number of national health concerns. A 1996 one-day conference was devoted to considering violence as a public health problem. The conference brought together community leaders, interfaith activists, former gang leaders, civic officials, school superintendents, mayors, law enforcement personnel, youth leaders from diverse communities, and academic researchers—all working to prevent violence in our communities. Several Wellness Awardees presented their research and new coalitions were forged to translate theory into community practice. The 1998 Public Policy Forum addressed issues of health services access, occupational health and safety in California's rural and agricultural communities.
One indicator of the recognition received by the Wellness Lectures Program has been the invitation from the University of California Press to collaborate on the development of a state-of-the-art textbook, utilizing a selection of the revised and updated Wellness Lectures papers in addition to invited new papers. This new textbook, Promoting Human Wellness: New Frontiers for Research, Practice, and Policy, is now available. Aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Public Health, Nursing, Medicine, Sociology, Social Welfare, Social Ecology, ethnic studies, and other social science and health disciplines, we invite you to see the UC Press announcement and purchase a copy.