Risk identification for cross-sectoral cooperation in health promotion practice

Cooperation in health promotion is an everyday practice where all the partners can benefit from learning and achieving individual and shared goals for establishing better and healthier patterns in society. During the COVID-19 pandemic, unplanned events can challenge project implementation making it even more crucial to elaborate on a strategy for dealing with unexpected situations by identifying risks of cooperation. This paper aims to present the component of risk identification for cross-sectoral cooperation as a part of the Model for cross-sectoral cooperation. Within the EU Interreg project, “Urban Labs for Better Health for All in the Baltic Sea Region” (Healthy Boost), the Model for cross-sectoral cooperation was developed for improving the cross-sectoral cooperation for health and wellbeing in nine cities of the Baltic Sea Region. Risk identification as one of the five domains of cross-sectoral cooperation has been developed based on published scientific literature and the results of a self-assessment of cross-sectoral cooperation in the Healthy Boost project partner cities. Risk identification focuses on different types of risks that should be considered at different stages of the project. In the project mapping stage, partner assessment, the timing of cooperation, and the identification of risk obstacles for cooperation should be considered. In the planning stage, realistic objectives, honest and trustworthy communication among partners are important. The fair distribution of responsibility and projects according to the previously planned activities and strategies should be considered in the implementation stage. In the assessment stage, partners should consider the risks for successful assessment by determining the cooperation indicators and methods to collect those. Risk identification is an essential domain of successful cross-sectoral cooperation that should be considered during all stages of the partnership. It allows partners to identify possible obstacles that could hinder the achievement of project objectives at any stage of the project implementation.