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BACKGROUND: Health promotion interventions for older adults are important as they can decrease the onset and evolution of diseases and thus can reduce the medical costs related to those diseases. However, there is no comparative evidence on how those interventions are funded in European countries. The aim of this study is to explore the funding of health promotion interventions in general and health promotion interventions for older adults in particular in European countries.METHOD: We use desk research to identify relevant sources of information such as official national documents, international databases and scientific articles. Fora descriptive overview on how health promotion is funded, we focus on three dimensions: who is funding health promotion, what are the contribution mechanisms and who are the collecting agents. In addition to general information on funding of health promotion, we explore how programs on health promotion for older population groups are funded.RESULTS: There is a great diversity in funding of health promotion in European countries. Although public sources (tax and social health insurance revenues) are still most often used, other mechanisms of funding such as private donations or European funds are also common. Furthermore, there is no clear pattern in the funding of health promotion for different population groups. This is of particular importance for health promotion for older adults where information is limited across European countries.CONCLUSIONS: This study provides an overview of funding of health promotion interventions in European countries. The main obstacles for funding health promotion interventions are lack of information and the fragmentation in the funding of health promotion interventions for older adults.

Background The use of e-health and m-health technologies in health promotion and primary prevention among older people is largely unexplored. This study provides a systematic review of the evidence on the scope of the use of e-health and m-health tools in health promotion and primary prevention among older adults (age 50+). Methods A systematic literature review was conducted in October 2015. The search for relevant publications was done in the search engine PubMed. The key inclusion criteria were: e-health and m-health tools used, participants’ age 50+ years, focus on health promotion and primary prevention, published in the past 10 years, in English, and full-paper can be obtained. The text of the publications was analyzed based on two themes: the characteristics of e-health and m-health tools and the determinants of the use of these tools by older adults. The quality of the studies reviewed was also assessed. Results The initial search resulted in 656 publications. After we applied the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 45 publications were selected for the review. In the publications reviewed, various types of e-health/m-health tools were described, namely apps, websites, devices, video consults and webinars. Most of the publications (60 %) reported studies in the US. In 37 % of the publications, the study population was older adults in general, while the rest of the publications studied a specific group of older adults (e.g. women or those with overweight). The publications indicated various facilitators and barriers. The most commonly mentioned facilitator was the support for the use of the e-health/m-health tools that the older adults received. Conclusions E-health and m-health tools are used by older adults in diverse health promotion programs, but also outside formal programs to monitor and improve their health. The latter is hardly studied. The successful use of e-health/m-health tools in health promotion programs for older adults greatly depends on the older adults’ motivation and support that older adults receive when using e-health and m-health tools. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1522-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background To motivate people to lead a healthier life and to engage in disease prevention, explicit financial incentives, such as monetary rewards for attaining health-related targets (e.g. smoking cessation, weight loss or increased physical activity) or disincentives for reverting to unhealthy habits, are applied. A review focused on financial incentives for health promotion among older people is lacking. Attention to this group is necessary because older people may respond differently to financial incentives, e.g. because of differences in opportunity costs and health perceptions. To outline how explicit financial incentives for healthy lifestyle and disease prevention work among older persons, this study reviews the recent evidence on this topic. Methods We applied the method of systematic literature review and we searched in PUBMED, ECONLIT and COCHRANE LIBRARY for studies focused on explicit financial incentives targeted at older adults to promote health and stimulate primary prevention as well as screening. The publications selected as relevant were analyzed based on directed (relational) content analysis. The results are presented in a narrative manner complemented with an appendix table that describes the study details. We assessed the design of the studies reported in the publications in a qualitative manner. We also checked the quality of our review using the PRISMA 2009 checklist. Results We identified 15 studies on the role of explicit financial incentives in changing health-related behavior of older people. They include both, quantitative studies on the effectiveness of financial rewards as well as qualitative studies on the acceptability of financial incentives. The quantitative studies are characterized by a great diversity of designs and provide mixed results on the effects of explicit financial incentives. The results of the qualitative studies indicate limited trust of older people in the use of explicit financial incentives for health promotion and prevention. Conclusions More research is needed on the effects of explicit financial incentives for prevention and promotion among older people before their broader use can be recommended. Overall, the design of the financial incentive system may be a crucial element in their acceptability. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1517-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.