**7. Way forward**

Of course, offers, and procedures for involvement and participation are generally positive, since they are already legitimate for democratic reasons alone. They should be implemented in health care regardless of whether there is empirical evidence on their effectiveness in managing disease and maintaining health.

Certainly, not all potential and possibilities of involvement and participation on the part of the population or the target group(s) were exploited in the implementation of the "Lenzgesund" prevention program. Participation and involvement naturally require professional management for their diverse procedures and forms in program development and implementation. At this point, however, the main actors already overloaded by the standard tasks are often overwhelmed from a technical and time perspective. In order to prevent nonuse, under-use, and misuse, it would be necessary to have municipal health promotion management that explicitly provides for the organization and implementation of civic involvement in the job description and also makes the necessary resources available for this purpose.

## **Acknowledgements**

We would like to thank our colleagues Waldemar Süß and Karin Wolf (formerly Mossakowski) for the dedicated research work they have carried out over the many years of our three joint projects!

We thank the (former) Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for funding the three projects:


BMBF research project "Long-term evaluation of complex interventions in neighborhood-related health promotion and prevention measures – An investigation of community capacities ten years after the start of the Lenzgesund program" (FKZ: 01 EL 1410), 2014–2017.

Last but not least, we would like to thank the institutions, actors and residents of the Lenzsiedlung for their dedicated work toward the program's practical implementation and during the accompanying research!

## **Conflicts of interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

*Participation as a Core Principle of Community Health Promotion: General Account… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.111930*
