[The university as a community: health-promoting universities. SESPAS Report 2018]

The connection of the University with the community to which it belongs is one of the basic principles on which the former is based. A community will be healthy as long as there are many connections between the individuals and sub-groups that form it. Working on health promotion, talking about participation and participatory models implies the assumption that people and communities have the right to self-manage. Implementing participation will involve opening up possibilities for co-management, autonomy, understanding of dynamic realities, the formalization of alliances, the transformation of contexts, and forms of relationship. It will involve understanding health as a right. Networking is fundamental in an interconnected and global world. Since its inception, the Project of Health Promoting Universities has been built with the participation of the university community towards improving the conditions for health, quality of life and well-being of all members of the community. Universities are ideal scenarios to implement strategies to improve the lifestyles of their members that also transcend to the university spaces and positively affect the lives of people on and off campus. The networks of Health Promoting Universities in Latin America were institutionalized in 2003, and took the form of the Ibero-American Network of Health Promoting Universities in 2007 within the framework of the third Conference on Health Promoting Universities held in the city of Juarez, Mexico. In 2008, the Spanish Network of Healthy Universities was created in Spain, in order to enhance the role of universities as environments that promote the health and well-being of their students, their staff and society, leading and supporting processes of social change.