The ambition of Health in All Policies in Norway: The role of political leadership and bureaucratic change

•Focuses on political leadership and bureaucratic change as vehicles for local HiAP success.•Clearer goals and priorities stimulates systematic attention to population health across sectors.•Strategic organizational anchorage of health is key to unleash cross-sectoral activity.•Sufficient capacity to learn and change a basic premise for cross sectoral action.•The state's active support and internal coordination essential for local implementation.

This paper presents and discusses status, challenges and future developments of Health in All Policies (HiAP) in Norway. Within the frames of the identified challenge of creating coordinated and durable policies and practices in local government, it discusses The Norwegian HiAP policy. More specifically, the paper identifies status and challenges for instituting firmer political and administrative attention to population health and health equity across administrative sectors and levels, and discusses how national authorities may stimulate more coordinated and durable HiAP policies and practices in the future.