[Health promoting schools: a new era in school nursing]

Health promotion schools, introduced by the World Health Organization in 1996, represent a new model for school health. They consist of six working areas, and reflect the spirit of the 1987 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, which aims to place the foundations of health promotion work in schools. This article introduces the development of health promotion schools, both in Taiwan and overseas, outlines their structure, and compares and contrasts the models represented by traditional school health, integrated school health, and the health promotion schools. The roles of school health nurses are summarized as follows: health service provider, health education initiator, health counselor, leader of health promotion activity and integrator of community resources. Suggestions are made for future development, including: (1) a need to conduct the research, in order to evaluate and provide evidence of outcome effectiveness, (2) a need to establish standardized indicators concerning school health nursing, and (3)Education and health should be integrated in the health promotion schools.