Taking a settings approach to health promotion means
addressing the contexts within which people live, work,
and play and making these the object of inquiry and
intervention as well as the needs and capacities of people
to be found in different settings. This approach can
increase the likelihood of success because it offers
opportunities to situate practice in its context. Members
of the setting can optimize interventions for specific
contextual contingencies, target crucial factors in the
organizational context influencing behavior, and render
settings themselves more health promoting. A number
of attempts have been made to systematize evidence
regarding the effectiveness of interventions in different
types of settings (e.g., school-based health promotion,
community development). Few, if any, attempts have
been made to systematically develop a template or
framework for analyzing those features of settings that
should influence intervention design and delivery. This
article lays out the core elements of such a framework
in the form of a nested series of questions to guide
analysis. Furthermore, it offers advice on additional
considerations that should be taken into account when
operationalizing a settings approach in the field.