2007-2008. Harris, N. and Sandor, M. Towards sustainability in community-based health promotion: A Delphi study of practitioner perspectives, $14 600.
As a relatively new approach to improving population health, the discipline of health promotion is striving to establish an evidence base for practice to secure both credibility and government funding. As such, sustainability of practice represents a crucial disciplinary issue, yet it has received limited attention. The goal of the study is to investigate practitioners' perspectives of sustainability in community-based health promotion projects. The anticipated outcomes are improved understanding of factors mediating sustainability and strategies for improvement. The project will make a significant contribution to the emerging debate on what Health promotion sustainability means and how it could be promoted.
2008 - date Harris, N. and Sandor, M. and project partners. Nutrition and Physical Activity Needs in the Logan-Beaudesert Region $224, 850
The project adopts a partnership based approach and incorporates a combination of complementary strategies to promote healthy eating and physical activity in the target population of children aged 0-8 within the Pacific Islander and African migrant communities of Logan. It seeks to achieve this purpose through strategies aimed at both meeting basic information needs as well as addressing underpinning factors such as skills development, opportunities for action and building community capacity and social interaction within and between communities of the Logan-Beaudesert region. The project is consistent with, and supportive of, the statewide 'Eat well, be active' campaign.
2006 - date Feasibility of an ecological health promotion approach along the continuum of accommodation and care options spanning retirement villages to residential aged care facilities
Over the last 30 years there have been significant positive changes in the community of older people in Australia. As the proportion of people aged 65 and over grows, there will be an associated challenge to maintain adequate standards of health care services within an acceptable taxation burden levied upon an ever decreasing proportion of the population. Concurrently, significant changes have taken place in the field of health promotion, in particular the emergence of 'Ecological Health Promoting Settings'. The settings approach to health promotion has transformed the way services are delivered in participating schools, cities, workplaces and on islands. This approach strengthens sustainable action through a participative and integrative framework within which innovative strategies for health can be brought together to maximise community well-being.
A group consisting of researchers, service providers, carers and residents of retirement communities believe that communities of older people have many features comparable to other settings and that these communities would benefit greatly from the application of a settings approach to health. The four partners in this project recognise the pressing need to take action and the potential for an ecological health approach to be applied within settings of accommodation and care options for older people. As an approach that has not been tested, the group has agreed to undertake a feasibility study to bring together experts from health promotion, quality of life, community engagement and providers of aged living and care services with residents to examine the idea.
Our project goal is to determine the feasibility of the application of an ecological health promotion approach in the retirement and aged care communities setting.