PromoACTIVA-SC: A Tool Aiming at Identifying Health Promotion Practice of Civil Society Organizations

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health promotion as the process of enabling individuals to gain control over and improve their health. This shifts the focus from lifestyle choices to broader social determinants of health, requiring involvement from healthcare, authorities, industry, civil society, and the media. Civil society engagement in health initiatives offers benefits such as empowerment, service delivery, flexibility, policy participation, and credibility. However, identifying specific health promotion actions for civil society organizations (CSOs) is challenging. The lack of assessment tools for CSOs hinders evaluation and improvement. Objective: To develop a tool, ‘PromoACTIVA-SC’, to assess CSOs’ health promotion practice by identifying essential actions that constitute the health promotion process. Methods: ‘PromoACTIVA-SC’ was developed through documentary analysis and validated by experts. CSOs’ members participated in cognitive interviews for comprehensibility, and the tool was pilot tested for administration and Likert scale evaluation. Results: The final questionnaire, consisting of 8 phases and 40 items, demonstrated good content validity. Its use can help to map CSOs’ practices and identify areas needing improvement. CSOs can use it for self-assessment and in collaborative health promotion and disease prevention efforts. Conclusions: ‘PromoACTIVA-SC’ is the first tool designed to assess civil society’s role in the health promotion process. Its future use will reveal the extent to which civil society organizations actively participate in health promotion. It can also be used to promote CSOs’ involvement in health policy and administration, enhancing public health outcomes through collaborative, cross-sectoral efforts.