The purpose of the following essay is to analyze how the Swedish regional policy has been influenced by the regional policy in the EU. The study builds on the theoretical framework that is Europeanization, the top-down approach, which stipulates where you can find evidence of this influence. To obtain the information that I needed to answer my question formulations, which main question formulation are; in which way has the EU regional policy influenced the Swedish regional policy? I used the method of literature analysis. Both the theoretical framework alongside the chosen method pointed me to analyze the public debate in Sweden in the regional question.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to study various views of sponsorship in relation to public libraries as found within three cultural policy documents. The main objective is to discover which ideas are considered relevant in the partnership between the Swedish retail chain, Åhléns, and the children?s public library, ?Room for Children? (Rum för Barn). In 2005, Åhléns provided SEK3.14 million in sponsorship to ?Room for Children? at Kulturhuset in Stockholm.

Aim: To examine director?s experiences of the process to implement smoke-free working hours and also their need of support to make it feasible in the municipality of Östhammar. Method: A qualitative interview study with a descriptive design was used. Semi-structured interviews were made with six directors who were selected from different levels, localities and administrations in the municipality of Östhammar. A qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data.Results: Many positive aspects were pointed out regarding the implementation of smoke-free working hours.

The interest in the significance of public health for economic growth has increasedsteadily in recent years and a clarification of this connection may be of importance forthe status of public health. Aim: The aim of this literature based study is to describewhat previous research has shown in terms of the connection between public health andeconomic growth, focusing on high-income countries. Method: The study is based ontwelve scholarly articles retrieved from four scholarly databases. Result: The resultclarify that there is a positive long-term correlation between good public health andeconomic growth in high-income countries. Good health has a positive effect onproductivity, which leads to increased economic growth.

Public opinion can be shaped as well as transformed in a number of ways. Government authorities occasionally make use of public information campaigns to educate and steer the public. In this thesis the balance between public and private, the individual and the society is analysed in terms of dimensions of individualism and communitarianism. These dissimilar theories on how the society ought to be constructed can be used when analysing many different policy areas, however, they also pinpoint the controversies seen in the public debate regarding Swedish information policy. Based on this analysis an empirical study identifies what kind of knowledge the state wants the citizens to possess and public information campaigns can be problematic.

This Master Thesis aims to study and discuss the occurence of three concepts in some influential cultural policy documents which includes the UNESCO public library manifesto, the Swedish libraries act, the Swedish cultural policy objectives, and a study from the mid nineties which deals with the cultural policy. The questions asked are: -Do the documents mention democracy? In what way? -Do the documents mention the public sphere? In what way? -Do the documents mention information? In what way? -How can we understand the content of the documents through relevant theories about democracy, the public sphere and information? Theories about the information society are used, as well as theories from Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Schiller and Robert Dahl. The way of method is document studies and abduktion, with influences from hermeneutic theory. The analysis deals with the documents through these concepts: democracy, the public sphere and information and puts forward the content, or lack of content, about democracy in the analysed material.

Coordinator of public health has recently become a new profession in the field of Health Promotion. During the last few years the pedagogic perspective has been increasingly important for the coordinators as a way of adapting their work methods to the circumstances. The conditions for coordinators of public health differ between municipalities and thus their tasks and responsibilities may vary with the local structure. According to the literature there are several ways to conduct Health Promotion and it is in the hands of the coordinator to adjust the methods to fit local conditions. The purpose of the study was to examine what influences the coordinators of public health and how that affects their work methods.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to describe and compare the debates regarding the public funded publishing company En bok för alla (EBFA). On two occasions, 1992 and 2007, the public funding was threatened, which lead to debates and protests. The funding was revoked in 2007. I want to examine if by studying a particular product of cultural policy, one can se tendencies to how the cultural policy in whole change over time.

Today sportsclubs are important actors in the work with promoting public health in Sweden. Sports have unique opportunities to reach out with messages to many people with diffrent backgrounds. In many respects sport- and clublife could be looked upon as health promotiv activiteis. It is not just the health of the individual that is affected by sportslife but also the community take advantage of active people in clubs. Partly through a healthier population and partly because clubs educational role in teaching democracy and solidarity to its members.

The state of health in Sweden demonstrates a high average length of life at the same time as diseases, due to luxurious living, grew into more and more widespread public health problems. Finding out that information is not enough to get man to live healthy has been conducive to a pedagogic based health education. An illustration of such an education is Public health pedagogy at the University of Kristianstad. The question is, does this education correspond to the new claims that society lays to health work? Our purpose was to throw light upon how individuals, qualified as public health pedagogues, look upon their work on one hand and how different clusters of thought from their study programme are conceived as activated in their professional exercise on the other.

The personnel policy program for the employees in studied municipality includes guidelines for the working environment, saying that health promoting activities is offered to all employees.                              Objective: To investigate how these activities were used and how the staff perceived the activities offered. The aim was also to find out how well the information about current health promotion efforts reached the staff.Method: A qualitative approach was used in the form of interviews. The sample consisted of municipal employees from seven different work sites.  A total of 12 women aged 32-52 years participated. The interviews were recorded and a hermeneutic theory was used to interpret the results.Results: The results showed that most informants used some form of fitness activity. In most cases health care-time was used for anything from walking to organized workouts. The great barrier was lack of information and lack of trained and dedicated health motivators. In several cases, informants had no knowledge about what a health motivator is supposed to do. The informants own suggestions for health promotion interventions included stress management and foot care.Conclusion: The survey showed that respondents were poorly informed about which wellness activities the municipality offered. The result could also be interpreted as a communication gap between the local authority, health motivators and the employees. A request for group activities was detected.  .

Introduction: Public health is based on the determinants of health. They mutually influence each other. Structural factors and life conditions contribute to health inequality both within and between countries. Health inequality can be seen between different social groups, which can be the cause of differences in living conditions, health behavior and disease vulnerability. One of the consequences of this is segregation which means that certain groups live apart, where this distribution can be connected to economic resources and/or ethnicity.

Syftet med denna studie är att kartlägga hur Skånes 33 kommuner har implementerat de nationella målområdena för folkhälsa. Studien har genomförts som en enkätundersökning samt intervjuer med folkhälsosamordnare i ett urval av dessa kommuner. Resultaten i studien visar att prioriteringen av målområdena primärt ligger på strukturella faktorer. Dock är målområde 11 (Minskat bruk av tobak och alkohol, ett samhälle fritt från narkotika och dopning samt minskade skadeverkningar av överdrivet spelande) det målområde som är högst prioriterat i Skåne. Kartläggningen visar att 18 av Skånes kommuner har en anställd folkhälsosamordnare. Resultatet visar att 17 av Skånes kommuner har en verksamhetsplan/folkhälsoplan, varav 14 av dessa kommuner har en anställd folkhälsosamordnare. Större delen av dessa har även implementerat de nationella målområdena för folkhälsa i kommunens folkhälsoplan.

Japan's foreign and security policy has seen some substantial changes as a result of events like the first Gulf war and 9/11th. This has been taken as proof, by some, that Japan is abandoning its antimilitaristic stance and pursuing a more traditional hard power role through military means. This essay aims to explore if these shifts have coincided with any substantial shifts away from antimilitarism, which has had a strong influence on the country's security policy since the end of WW2.To do this I use constructivist theory, specifically regarding the impact of norms and identities on states security policy and briefly look into the problem of actor designation. The thematic focus is on security policy, from a narrow perspective, and thus I examine areas like the input and output to the Japanese military and the actual applications of this force. State identity is used to explore the prevalence of nationalistic sentiments and support for anti militarism in the public opinion and the political elite.The result of this study points to the further relevance of constructivist theory and especially the application of norms and identity.

School can be an effective environment for achieving a more equal health among children and adolescents, since many individuals can be reached by the health promoting work in the school. In the year of 2000 a project in Skåne was started for the development of health promoting schools. The health promoting projects however, have shown to be of short duration. So, as an alternative, the integration of the health in school ought to be tried. The aim of this study is to give examples how health promoting schools can strengthen their profile.