Initiated on January 15th, 2020, the purpose of the U.S. Health Promoting Campuses Network (USHPCN) is to facilitate, advance, and promote the adoption of the Okanagan Charter: An International Charter for Health Promoting Universities & Colleges for U.S. Colleges and Universities. The adoption of the Okanagan Charter as an aspirational document represents the beginning of an aspirational journey toward campus wellbeing utilizing a comprehensive settings and systems-level approach. The USHPCN is a support network that helps campuses define, develop, and create strategies and metrics that help define what it means to be a health promoting campus, recognizing that it will be different for each campus based on their unique circumstances, resources, and needs. Each member campus appoints liaisons who meet regularly to learn from, collaborate with, and support each other in this work by sharing resources, best practices, and lessons learned. The USHPCN also collaborates with international networks, and is one of thirteen member networks within a more extensive international network, the International Health Promoting Universities & Colleges Network.

Discussion about the Okanagan Charter in the United States gained momentum in early 2018, at the NASPA Strategies Conference in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Mark Dooris (U.K.) and Dr. Matt Dolf (Canada) were keynote and session presenters, who shared their advanced systems-level work in health promotion on campuses across their countries. In January of 2020, at a NASPA Strategies Pre-Conference session, representatives from 30-40 campuses gathered in New Orleans, Louisiana to discuss the Okanagan Charter and the movement to create a national network. Several campus representatives met again in April (on Zoom due to the pandemic) to discuss building a national network, and a Steering Group was formed to lead the process. Interested campuses began monthly meetings in November, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham became the first U.S. institution to adopt the Charter in December 2020.  The first USHPCN Summit was held in February (2021), featuring Dr. Mark Dooris and Dr. Matt Dolf as speakers. The first in-person USHPCN Summit was held at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in February (2023) under the theme “Centering Equity While Moving Through Wellness to Wellbeing,” featuring Dr. Kimberly Brown Pellum and Dr. Sandro Galea.

The Okanagan Charter is a guiding and aspirational document that was developed as an outcome of the 2015 International Conference on Health Promoting Universities and Colleges.  Health promotion scholars and professionals from around the world gathered to create this document.  Its purpose is to guide colleges and universities, using their unique positions and roles in research, teaching and service to their communities, to be leaders for the world in developing and modeling health-promoting strategies in their campus settings.  Local communities could then learn from their example and modeling, thus influencing global health and wellbeing strategy.  The key is moving beyond traditional approaches of influencing individual behavior, and moving upstream to systems level and environmental strategies that influence the health and wellbeing of person, place and planet.

The Limerick Framework for Action is an international framework designed to advance the global health promoting campuses agenda. The Framework was an outcome of the 2025 International Health Promoting Campuses Conference hosted at the University of Limerick, Ireland. It provides a comprehensive roadmap for the collective implementation of health promotion efforts across the higher education system, and supports health promoting campuses and their communities to implement practical strategies, recognize and document progress, and foster active participation and partnerships.

The University of Alabama Birmingham joined to assist and support the first cohort in 2021 where seven more campuses adopted. The 2022 cohort added six additional campuses in adopting the Charter. Eight campuses in the 2023 cohort adopted the Charter. In 2024, ten more institutions adopted the Charter. By the end of 2025, more than 45 campuses have adopted. The cohort approach has allowed the campuses to work together and learn from each other, as well as having the network amplify the celebration. Each year, campuses will self-select into a new cohort to begin their adoption journey. For a full list of those who have adopted, please click here.

After the development and release of the Okanagan Charter in 2015, several regions used the document as a foundational tool to create regional networks of campuses that would use the Charter to guide their wellbeing initiatives and work.  Today, under the umbrella of the International Health Promoting Campuses Network (IHPCN), strong regional networks exist in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Ibero America, and others.  Dr. Mark Dooris (U.K.) and Dr. Matt Dolf (Canada) are recognized global founding leaders in this work, and today Dr. Dolf and Dr. Rebecca Kennedy (U.S.) are co-chairing the IHPCN.