Assessment 1: Review of a Health Promotion Initiative PDF

Preview

Summary

Download Assessment 1: Review of a Health Promotion Initiative PDF

Description

ASSESMENT TASK 1: REVIEW OF A HEALTH PROMOTION INIATIVE 92544

Mali Sinclair, Student #: 12570925

1 Background & Aims: ‘Don’t Make Smokes Your Story’ (DMSYS), is a national tobacco campaign established on the 1 st of May 2016, by the Australian Department of Health. The division of Australia’s government responsible for the provision of policy and programs for health, aged care, and sport. As a government body, all campaigns use nationally collected data, primarily from sources such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to target national issues, aiming to ensure better health outcomes for all Australians.

The primary goal of the campaign is to reduce smoking among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (ATSI). As well as those who have recently quit, aged 18-40 and their families (Australian Department of Health, 2018). By demonstrating the positive benefits that quitting has on the individual and their community. The campaign aims to do so through the provision of relevant information on the impacts of smoking. These are presented in videos, succinct flow charts and a culturally appropriate Quit-Line partnership.

The reason for its establishment is that smoking rates among Indigenous Australians are disproportionally high, with 42% of those aged 15+ currently smoking, 2.8 times greater than non-indigenous rates. (Australia’s Health 2018). Furthermore, tobacco smoking is the most preventable cause of ill health and death in Australia (Australia’s Health 2018), thus a reduction in smoking would lessen ill health among the ATSI population.

Strengths & Weaknesses: For Health Promotion to be effective among Indigenous communities, it must be culturally appropriate (Liaw et al 2011, Demaio, Drysdale & Courten 2012, Australia’s Health 2018) as “culture and identity are central to Aboriginal perceptions of health and ill health” (Liaw et al 2011, p.238). This is a major strength present on the website. As it links the personal stories and messages from those who have previously quit back to cultural and communal aspects of positive health change, such as ‘healing’ and ‘family’. Thus, effectively targeting the culture of Indigenous Australians.

Similarly, the campaign acknowledges the regional dialect, slang and idioms of ATSI communities, with each interview and advertisement covering different areas and peoples. A strategy, which according to Demaio, helps strengthen the effectiveness of Health Promotion (Demaio, Drysdale & Courten 2012). One minor negative is the lack of differing languages, with all written text being displayed in English. However, this is somewhat understandable as there are 120 different indigenous dialects (AIATSIS 2018), but it does erect a potential barrier to access (Demaio, Drysdale & Courten 2012).

The issue of access is again prevalent with more than 20% of indigenous Australians living in remote or very remote areas (Australia’s health 2018), and remote/ very remote Australians being less likely to have internet access at home (ABS 2018),

2 the potential for the web-based campaign to effectively reach all indigenous Australians is further reduced, as those with access to smoking cessation programs, such as Quit Now were 43% more likely to quit than control groups (Carson et al. 2012). Impacting those that may not have access to local services attempting to quit

Potential for eliciting behaviour The effectiveness of a campaign for positive health change is heavily reliant on how it adopts the strategies and theories of behavioural change (Glanz and Bishop, 2010). While there are many interplaying theories, the Social Cognitive Theory appears to be prevalent in the implementation of DMSYS. Social Cognitive Theory centres around the determinants of knowledge, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals, perceived facilitatory and, impediments for change. The interaction of how they work, and the way which knowledge can be put into practice (Bandura 2004)

Within the Social Cognitive Theory, Bandura states “knowledge creates the precondition for change” (Bandura 1998, p.624), which strongly supports the websites succinct information to create change among individuals. As increased knowledge has been shown to self-efficacy (Rimal 2000), also increasing the likelihood of positive health outcomes (Strecher et al. 1986). Therefore, by providing the knowledge from relatable individuals it increases the likelihood that positive health outcomes will occur (Liaw et al 2011).

The Social Cognitive Theory also states that an individual’s actions are impacted by 1) socially accepted beliefs and 2) by one’s own beliefs. However, a higher prevalence of smoking within Aboriginal communities has led to a normalisation of the behaviour (Passey, Gale & Sanson-Fisher 2011), The campaign attempts to shift these views, as previously mentioned using videos of Indigenous Australians. Though, because of the ingrained culturally acceptance, the possibility to elicit change is reduced as it would require systemic change according to the Social Cognitive Theory for change to occur.

Recommendations The issue faced with improving the effectiveness of an online health promotion policy targeted towards a specific marginalised group, is that evidence primarily addresses offline methods generally focused on promotions working with communities to effectively target issues (Chamberlain et al. 2017).

One possible suggestion is to increase the campaigns social media presence, as the website fails to link to any social media outlets e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Which is an issue as social media can reduce barriers to access (Chou et al. 2013). Indigenous youths are avidly utilising social to help shape their identity (Rice et al. 2016), and social media offers a new method for young Australians to express themselves and learn in ways that may not be possible with other media, such as the connection of individuals, and transmission of informational across generations to improve relations (Edmonds et al. 2012, Healy 2013). Possibly opening a new avenue for anti-smoking campaigns to help change cultural norms. As “Indigenous

3 young people expressed that they are more drawn to multimedia, video, social networking, animation, music and mobile phones than traditional anti-smoking marketing campaigns” (Rice et al. 2016, p.11) This would also effectively target the age demographic of the campaign, as young Indigenous Australians were more likely to live in a dwelling with an internet connection compared to Indigenous Australians aged 55+ (ABS 2011). Thus, through the implementation of social media, DMSYS could more effectively reach key demographics, and continually help change cultural perceptions of smoking.

4

References Australian Bureau of Statistics , 2011, Census of Population and Housing: Characteristics of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 2011, ABS, Canberra, viewed 6 September 2018,

Australian Bureau of Statistics 2018, Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, 2016-17, ABS, Canberra, viewed 6 September 2018 Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies 2018, Indigenous Australian Languages, AIATSIS, Canberra, viewed 5 September 2018 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018. Australia’s health 2018. Australia’s health series no. 16. AUS 221. Canberra: AIHW. Viewed 5 September 2018, Australian Department of Health 2018, Don’t Make Smokes Your Story Toolkit, ADH, Canberra, viewed 5 September 2018,

Bandura, A. 1998, ‘Health promotion from the perspective of social cognitive theory’, Psychology and Health, vol. 13, no. 4, pp.623-649 Bandura, A. 2004, ‘Health Promotion by Social Cognitive Means’, Health Education & Behavior, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 143-164 Carson, KV., Brinn, MP., Labiszewski, NA., Peters, M., Chang, AB., Veale, A., Esterman, AJ., Smith, BJ. 2012, ‘Interventions for tobacco use prevention in Indigenous Youth’, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, no. 8, viewed 6 September 2018, < https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22895988> Chamberlain, C., Perlen, S., Brenna, S., Rychetnik, L., Thomas, D., Maddox, R., Alam, N., Banks, E., Wilson, A., Eades, S. 2017, ‘Evidence for a comprehensive approach to Aboriginal tobacco control to maintain the decline in smoking: an overview of reviews among Indigenous peoples’, Systematic Reviews, vol. 6, viewed 6 September 2018,

Chou, WY., Prestin, A., Lyons, C., Wen, KY. 2013, ‘Web 2.0 for Health Promotion: Reviewing the Current Evidence’, American Journal of Public Health, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. e9-18, viewed 6 September 2018,

Demaio, A., Drysdale, M., Courten, MD. 2012, ‘Appropriate health promotion for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities: crucial for closing the gap’, Global Health Promotion, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 58-62

5 Edmonds, F., Rachinger, C., Waycott, J., Morrissey, P., Kelada, O., Nordlinger, R. 2012 ‘Keeping Intouchable: A community report on the use of mobile phones and social networking by young Aboriginal people in Victoria’, Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society, , University of Melbourne, Melbourne, viewed 6 September 2018,

Glanz, K. & Bishop, D. 2010, ‘The Role of Behavioral Science Theory in Development and Implementation of Public Health Interventions’, Annual Review of Public Health, vol. 31, pp.399-418 Healy, J. 2013, ‘Yolngu Zorba meets Superman: Australian Aboriginal people, mediated publicness and the culture of sharing on the Internet’, Anthrovision, viewed 6 September 2018,

Liaw, ST., Lau, P., Furler, J., Burchill, M., Rowley, K., Kelaher, M. 2011, ‘Successful chronic disease care for Aboriginal Australians requires cultural competence’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, vol. 35, no. 3, pp.238-248 Passey, M., Gale, J., Sanson-Fisher, R. 2011, ‘“It’s almost expected”: rural Australian Aboriginal women’s reflection on smoking initiation and maintenance: a qualitative study’, BMC Women’s Health, vol. 11, no. 55, viewed 6 September 2018, Rice, E., Haynes, E., Royce, P., Thompson, S., 2016, ‘Social media and digital technology use among Indigenous young people in Australia: a literature review’, International Journal for equity in Health, vol. 15, no. 61, viewed 6 September 2018, Rimal, R. 2000, ‘Closing the Knowledge-Behavior Gap in Health Promotion: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy’, Health Communication, vol. 12, no.3, pp.219-237 Strecher, V., DeVellis, B., Becker, M., Rosenstock, I. 1986, ‘The Role of Self-Efficacy in Achieving Health Behavior Change’, Health Education Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 1 pp. 73-92...