Title: Salutogenic community building

Authors: Khamphira Viravong

Addresses: Computer Science Department, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1080 Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway

Abstract: A |new| approach to community building is based on the concept of salutogenesis (a proactive approach to health promotion and prevention). Increasing organisational focus on sustaining healthy work forces requires a coherent mechanism for coping, social cohesion and community development. This research is based on a ten-month ethnographic study of social workers, health professionals and technologists of a Norwegian NGO involved in community health promotion. The aim was to develop a well-formed understanding of the three salutogenic criteria in terms of community-building processes. It was found that collaborating, planning (organising), and defining the community were the key areas of salutogenic community building. Based on a processual world view of context and action (change), the adaptation of a coherent conceptual framework for modelling practices allowed the identification of generic salutogenic practices in community building at a fundamental level: a non-compositional, non-substance semantico-ontological framework (semantic holism and process ontology).

Keywords: community building; information design; contextual semantics; process ontology; methodology; web based communities; salutogenesis; ethnography; Norway; health promotion; prevention; community health; collaboration; planning; ontology; semantics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2007.013772

International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2007 Vol.3 No.1, pp.32 - 43

Published online: 27 May 2007 *

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