Factors that facilitated and challenged the development of health goals and targets: the British Columbia experience.

Health promotion research and practice reveal that goal setting and monitoring have gained increased acceptance at international, national, provincial/state, regional and local levels. The global adoption of health goals as a strategy for population health promotion has occurred even though few protocols or guidelines to support the health goals development process have been published. Limited study has occurred on the variation in approach to health goals planning, or on the complex, multiple forces that influence the development process. This paper describes conclusions drawn from an exploratory and descriptive case study that tracked the pathways to health goals in British Columbia (BC) and uncovered nearly 100 factors that influenced the final version of health goals adopted by the government of BC. Influencing factors included: (a) positive perceptions of the benefits of health goals, (b) the role of a trusted health goals champion, (c) positioning of the goals as government rather than health ministry goals, (d) the format and agenda of the health goals consulting process, and (e) political reluctance toward highly specific or measurable goals with targets.