The Hitchhiker's Guide to Salutogenesis

This open access book is a comprehensive yet compact volume explaining both the theory of salutogenesis and key examples of its implementation. It mainly serves as an introduction to salutogenesis for newcomers but also would appeal to teachers and students of any profession attached to health, nursing, environmental, political, pedagogical and social sciences. The new edition is revised, updated and expanded with new areas of research.

The first edition was a unique publication linking salutogenesis to health promotion, giving it a theoretical foundation and exemplifying its use in the five core action areas of the Ottawa Charter and beyond. It published in 2010, whereafter the research area of salutogenesis has become widely accepted in most health sciences and as a theory foundation for health promotion. Since then, the number of scientific publications on salutogenesis has increased exponentially.

This second edition includes the latest updates in the field of salutogenesis and how salutogenesis offers a perspective to examine planetary health and sustainability in a concise and accessible way. Among the topics covered:

• The Original Salutogenic Framework
• The Orientation to Life Questionnaire - the Sense of Coherence (SOC)
• Health, Mental Health and Quality of Life
• Salutogenesis in the Context of Learning Processes
• Salutogenesis in the Context of Work
• Salutogenesis in the Context of Society
• Critical Issues Related to the Salutogenic Theory and Its Implementation
• Future Perspectives

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Salutogenesis: From the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion to Planetary Health is pertinent reading for health promotion professionals, nurses, social workers, living environment specialists, health policy makers, academics, students, and lecturers in the fields of health sciences, social sciences, health promotion and public health.

Monica Eriksson, PhD, is Professor in public health and health promotion and from 2025 affiliated researcher at Lund University, Sweden. She was educated at Åbo Akademi University in Vasa, Finland, where she also is an Associate Professor in social policy. She was member of the IUHPE Global Working Group on Salutogenesis (2007-2018). Her research focus, from the beginning, has been on salutogenesis. In 2007, she defended her doctoral thesis, a systematic research synthesis, based on more than 450 scientific papers on studies using Aaron Antonovsky’s sense of coherence scale. Her research on health resources on different levels and on various samples continues to further elaborate the understanding of salutogenesis.   

Lenneke Vaandrager, PhD in health promotion, is associate professor in Health and Society at Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands. She takes on a sociological perspective to study the healthy living environment. Her work – in research, managerial and teaching roles – is underpinned by the values of care, participation and justice. She works together with landscape architects, social geographers, plant scientists, public health nutritionists, health promotion professionals, policy makers and citizens. Her overall research focus is to analyse and contribute to the development of inclusive healthy settings: contexts in which people engage in daily activities and in which environmental, organizational and personal factors interact to affect health and wellbeing. She loves working around the theme of nature and wellbeing: green citizen initiatives, liveable cities and green care. She is member of the Global Working Group on Salutogenesis and coordinator of the European Training Consortium in Public Health and Health Promotion (ETC-PHHP).

Bengt Lindström, MD, PhD, DrPH, Professor of Salutogenesis, Public Health and Health Promotion (retired 2017), first trained as a Specialist in Paediatrics. The original interest in a broader understanding of health came from his research on quality of life in children developing the wellbeing dimension of health. He worked with Aaron Antonovsky in Antonovsky's last seven years of life and initiated research and academic training in salutogenesis immediately after Antonovsky’s premature death in 1994, thereby continuing the new tradition of regarding health as a resource and constructive concept known for innovative and graphic ways of explaining health. He is affiliated with several universities in Northern Europe and initiated and ran the IUHPE Global Working Group on Salutogenesis until his retirement in 2017.