Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals
-
Health Promot J Austr · Apr 2014
Mobilisation, politics, investment and constant adaptation: lessons from the Australian health-promotion response to HIV.
The Australian response to HIV oversaw one of the most rapid and sustained changes in community behaviour in Australia's health-promotion history. The combined action of communities of gay men, sex workers, people who inject drugs, people living with HIV and clinicians working in partnership with government, public health and research has been recognised for many years as highly successful in minimising the HIV epidemic. ⋯ The experience of the response to HIV, including its successes and failures, has lessons applicable across health promotion. This includes the need to harness community mobilisation and action; sustain participation, investment and leadership across the partnership; commit to social, political and structural approaches; and build and use evidence from multiple sources to continuously adapt and evolve. So what? The Australian HIV response was one of the first health issues to have the Ottawa Charter embedded from the beginning, and has many lessons to offer broader health promotion and common challenges. As a profession and a movement, health promotion needs to engage with the interactions and synergies across the promotion of health, learn from our evidence, and resist the siloing of our responses.
-
Health Promot J Austr · Aug 2012
Assessing the capacity of New Zealand health promoters to develop programs that meet the health literacy needs of both consumers and government.
Since 2008 a conservative government in New Zealand has emphasised the importance of individual responsibility for health, with the implication that health promotion, including health literacy, would be of low priority. This paper discusses this in the context of research that aims to assess (i) the views of disadvantaged consumers on nutrition information and (ii) health promoter competence in health literacy practice, and argues that aspects of health literacy principles may indeed be of interest to conservative governments. ⋯ Consumer acceptance of individual responsibility and workforce capability in technical aspects of health literacy suggest that health promotion organisations can align themselves with government goals and seek to improve personal health literacy.
-
Recent increases in the prevalence of self-reported participation in physical activity are encouraging and beneficial for health overall. However, the implications for sun safety need to be considered, particularly in Australia, which has the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world. This study investigated the relationship between physical activity and sunburn to determine if there is a need for integration of sun safety in physical activity promotion. ⋯ This study highlights the need for sun protection to be given more prominence in physical activity promotion in order to optimise health benefits without increasing the prevalence of sunburn and associated skin cancer risk.