Lokala folkhälsostrategier i Sverige fokuserar på jämlikhet och social hållbarhet : Innehållsanalys av nio kommuners styrdokument

Sammanfattning: Background Despite strong recognition of the role of local authorities for purposeful and targeted interventions for sustainable development and social cohesion in Sweden, municipalities’ steering and policy making within public health is limited researched. Purpose To explore the content and the priorities of public health policy documents of municipalities in Sweden. Method A qualitative design. Public health policy documents were collected during Winter of 2022 from nine municipalities in Sweden. With a focus on priorities, the documents were with a content analysis examined which revealed two overarching themes emerging from six categories. Results The six categories consisted of; a high degree of political ownership and engagement; a broad awareness of the most-at-risk groups; a strong emphasis on early measures and prevention; a long-term perspective regardless timebound political mandates; a strong coherence between global and national commitments into local contexts but timelines and mechanisms for follow-up were left unspecified or allowed for interpretation. The accountability aspects were weak for the majority: goals and commitments were expressed in vague terms. It was also disclosed that some of the municipalities did not make references to the specificizes of their own local context nor unique advantages/disadvantages, and instead maintained and applied a generic approach. Conclusions Public health policies of Swedish local authorities aimed clearly to strengthen social sustainability and equity, but a more systematic follow-up and evaluation of the measures and interventions would allow for further development towards the realisation of overall health, social and development goals.