Beyond Behaviour Change: Structural Approaches to Health Promotion for Vulnerable Groups

Best practice and intervention portals have become essential tools for supporting evidence-informed action in public health across many countries. Experiences from diverse national contexts demonstrate a shared need for accessible, reliable platforms that translate evidence into actionable strategies for both policymakers and practitioners. Emerging evidence suggests that such portals generate impact at multiple levels. They support policymakers in designing informed strategies and enable practitioners to implement interventions that are both effective and adaptable to local contexts. At the same time, they function as instruments for knowledge transfer, capacity building, and cross-sectoral learning. However, important challenges remain. Portal providers must ensure the quality, relevance, and contextual sensitivity of the included interventions while keeping the portal updated and user-friendly. Users, on the other hand, often select practices more broadly, adapting them to specific settings, and mobilising the necessary resources for implementation. In this PechaKucha session, three speakers from established and newly developed portals will reflect on key success factors, common challenges and lessons learned. The Netherlands will share stakeholder needs and efforts to improve evidence‑based policy and practice. Germany will highlight the importance of equity-oriented criteria and the relevance of structural interventions instead of individual interventions. Austria will present users’ experiences and perspectives on the portal’s added value for implementers and decision-makers.

Key messages

• Best practice portals can strengthen evidence-informed and equity-oriented public health, especially when they prioritize structural interventions.

• Better alignment of portal providers, users and decision-makers is key to increasing the practical impact of intervention portals.