Health promotion uses a range of complementary approaches to provide individuals and communities with knowledge that will enable them to improve their own health and wellbeing. Encouraging children to adopt healthy lifestyle habits is a central objective, and health promotion at a community level, particularly through health promoting schools, may be an effective strategy. Health promoting schools are well within the capacity of even poor countries, as they focus on the school and its culture, and establishing health promoting schools requires a change in mindset and refinement of educational investment rather than the provision of major new resources, engagement of non-government organizations or obtaining international funding. A consensus of current evidence and essential concepts underlying health promotion in schools, principles that contribute to success or failure, and opportunities for implementation and engagement is presented, based on shared experience and dialogue at a 2011 international colloquium held at Stellenbosch University.

Pulse oximetry is a simple, portable, and noninvasive tool widely used in clinical practice to evaluate the oxygenation status of a patient by monitoring arterial oxygen saturation (${\mathrm{SpO}}_2$).^1,2 Each pulse oximeter unit consists of a monitor and a sensor. The monitor component controls light signal generation. The sensor component consists of one light-emitting diode (LED) that uses two red (600 to 750 nm) and near-infrared (NIR) (850 to 1000 nm) wavelengths to penetrate the skin and tissue, a photodetector (PD) to detect the light absorption, and a photon-counting processor.³ The optical technology is based on photoplethysmography (PPG), which is used to measure blood volume changes in the microvascular tissue bed. PPG detects the increase in light absorption during the systolic increase in arterial blood volume.⁴ Pulse oximeters measure the difference in light absorption of oxygenated (${\mathrm{O}}_2\mathrm{Hb}$) and deoxygenated hemoglobin (HHb) in pulsatile arterial blood to estimate the percentage of oxygen saturation in the arterial circulation.^{5 – 7}

There are calls for innovation in health promotion and for current issues to be presented in new and exciting ways; in addition to creating engaging messages, novel ways to deliver health messaging are needed, especially where youth are the key target audience. When pupils in WHO Health Promoting Schools were asked what health messages would resonate with them, they also identified celebrities as the ‘messengers’ they would be particularly likely to listen to. Expanding on these discussions, the pupils quoted celebrity-recorded music videos containing health and lifestyle messaging as an example of where they had learned from celebrities. Their ability to sing phrases from the songs and repeat key health messages they contained indicated the videos had commanded attention and provided knowledge and perspectives that had been retained. We located on YouTube the video titles the pupils identified and evaluated the content, messaging and production concepts these celebrity-recorded music videos incorporated. All are good examples of the health promotion genre known as education entertainment, where educational content is intentionally included in professionally produced entertainment media to impart knowledge, create favorable attitudes and impact future behaviors. The importance of this genre is growing in parallel with the burgeoning influence of social media. Music videos resonate with youth, and celebrity recordings combine young people’s love of music with their fascination for the aura of celebrity. Hence, producing videos that combine an effective health message with celebrity endorsement offers potential as an innovative conduit for health promotion messaging among youth.

Progress in research applications of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and growing clinical interest have led to significant improvements in hardware and software. Amongst continuous wave systems the use of light emitting diodes, incorporation of spatially resolved optical geometry, algorithm refinement, development of portable systems, and wireless telemetry led first to portable NIRS instruments, then wearable systems, and now miniaturized self-contained devices. Measurement of absolute tissue oxygen saturation in both muscle and brain, and mapping of event related cortical hemodynamic responses using functional NIRS (fNIRS) have added specific measurement modalities. Wireless wearable systems and self-contained devices capable of measuring such modalities in addition to providing conventional monitoring of trends in oxygenated and deoxygenated haemoglobin concentration from baseline have increased the scope of research, expanded the population readily monitored, and opened new clinical avenues for applications involving NIRS. This review explores the range of biomedical applications reported using wireless continuous wave (CW) NIRS and fNIRS systems, summarizes key elements in the specification of available devices, and outlines potential future directions for clinical use of wireless NIRS technologies.

A challenge for implementing DOHaD-defined health promotion is how to engage the at-risk population. The WHO Health Promoting School (HPS) model has proven success engaging youth and improving health behaviors. Hence, we introduced DOHaD concepts to 151 pupils aged 12–15 years in three HPS programs in rural Uganda, inquired what factors would make DOHaD-related health promotion resonate with them, and discussed how they recommended making learning about DOHaD acceptable to youth. Economic factors were judged the most compelling; with nutrition and responsive care elements next in importance. Suggested approaches included: teach how good health is beneficial, what works and why, and give tools to use to achieve it, and make information positive rather than linked to later harm. Involve youth in making DOHaD learning happen, make being a parent sound interesting, and include issues meaningful to boys. These are the first data from youth charged with addressing their engagement in the DOHaD agenda.