Answer

Public Health Project Plan

Unhealthy eating is the genesis of metabolic syndrome that is linked to diabetes (Madan, Moturu, Lazer, Pentland, 2010). Public education on disease awareness and prevention is critical for promoting healthy eating so as to reduce the prevalence of the disease. This document presents a health promotion project plan for diabetes among children in Wonthaggi, Victoria.

The Health Promotion Project Plan

Project statement

To undertake a public health promotion through education on disease awareness and prevention by exploring the food environment in Wonthaggi, Victoria and its context, programs, resources and communication practices and, how this environment contributes to the prevalence of diabetes in the pediatric population in the community.

Specific target group

Parents in Wonthaggi, Victoria.

Why this public health promotion is beneficial for the Australian population

This public health promotion is beneficial for the Australian population in Wonthaggi as it will improve health outcomes for the children in the target group due to a visual prompt since their unhealthy eating habit is a leading cause of diabetes and poor oral health (Lloyd-Jones, Hong, Labarthe, Mozaffarian, Appel, Van Horn, Arnett, 2010). Through this project, you would reach out to the target groups and seek to influence their shopping habits to ensure that the children from this community are not exposed to an unhealthy diet that significantly contribute to ill health.  Notably, of significance is the involvement of the target community in the public health promotion program. The project will enhance understanding by the community about the importance of healthy eating and the role of the parents in promoting good eating habits among the children as well as improving the receptiveness of the target community members on their eating culture (Poston, Haddock, Jahnke, Jitnarin, Day, 2013). Moreover, the project will inform the identification of necessary adjustments for the Australian Senior Health Officials Network, aimed at contributing to improved public health by focusing on a more strategic approach to promoting healthy eating.

Purpose of the project

The project is purposed to establish collaborative relationships at the level of a project officer to improve implementation of public health nutrition interventions in Wonthaggi, Victoria. Besides, the project will examine the feasibility of developing relevant strategies for regional communications as well as the resources for use in health promotion activities in the community. To achieve this, you would develop the relevant materials through community mobilization (Mattson, Basu, 2010). Community mobilization would ensure that the information dissemination reaches out to different sectors of the target community and foster partnership with the target community members.

Goals and aims of this health promotion project

This health promotion project is intended to promote good health among the pediatric population in the targeted group by examining options for healthy eating through: assessing the feasibility of a the community healthy eating communication strategy based on the community needs and culture as well as existing activities, study the community resources for promoting healthy eating habits and explore the role of local nutritionists in health promotion activities (Edelman, Mandle, Kudzma, 2013).  Besides, the project aims at identifying the needs of the community as well as gaps in existing measures that are undertaken to monitor nutritional context of the community and finally, recommend areas that require collaborative action for the Network. The goals and aims of this health promotion project can be explored through the SMART mnemonic as follows (Walls, Murphy, 2012);

Specific – the project is aimed at decreasing the percentage of overweight children in Wonthaggi and, by doing so, curve the rate of children being diagnosed with diabetes by 5% before 2020 (Lloyd-Jones, Hong, Labarthe, Mozaffarian, Appel, Van Horn, Arnett, 2010). Measurable – this would be measurable through primary school screening and health checkups. The regular screen of children in primary schools will help in measuring the effectivity of the health promotion project. Achievable- it will be difficult to achieve this goal as parents of this area are cultured for quick food rather than healthy food and, due to the cost and convenience of unhealthy food, parents tend to ignore food facts don’t necessarily monitor what their children are eating. Realistic-this is a realistic goal to achieve, schools and sporting clubs could get on board and push for only healthy food to be served or consumed on their grounds. The active participation of the entire community in the promotion of healthy eating is realizable after creating awareness among the population on the contribution of unhealthy eating to the development of ill health such as diabetes and its comorbidities. Notably, the community participation would significantly contribute to the realization of the project’s aims. Time-bound- this goal has four years to achieve a 5 percent drop in cases of overweight in children in Wonthaggi.

Rational for the project

Adequate, nutritious food is critical for good health promotion and significantly helps to prevent disease (Rock, Byers, Colditz, Demark-Wahnefried, Ganz, Wolin, Pakiz, 2013). In Wonthaggi, the shift away from consumption of foods produced locally has significantly contributed to the increase in cases of obesity and overweight among children. Notably, poor nutrition has significant consequences to individuals and, to the nation as a whole (Rock, Byers, Colditz, Demark-Wahnefried, Ganz, Wolin, Pakiz, 2013). For instance, in Australia, the financial burden posited by diet-related diseases such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer was estimated to be about six billion dollars per year by the National Health and Medical Research Council in 2002 (Dixon, 2010). Notably, the significant health risks associated with poor diet include Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke and some cancers among other diseases. However, the chronic diseases associated with poor diet are largely preventable through adherence to the proper and healthy diet.  Consequently, we need to promote healthy eating habits among the targeted population and physical activity among the pediatric population of the targeted group before their behaviors induce unhealthy weight or poor diet related diseases.

Public Health promotion management perspectives

This health promotion falls into the Primary level of prevention as it is an education basis to increase awareness of the risks of poor diet and physical inactivity aiming to reduce the burden of diabetes which can be preventable (Vandvik, Lincoff, Gore, Gutterman, Sonnenberg, Alonso-Coello, Spencer, 2012). Notably, the promotion seeks to promote disease awareness among the target population and educate the community on how poor diet contributes to the occurrence of these diseases and further advocate for preventive measures through the adoption of good eating habits among the target population.

Stakeholders, and community consultation

Additional stakeholders would include primary schools, sports clubs, Australian Food industry, NGO’s: Diabetes Australia, ANF, Heart Foundation; Local Governments in Wonthaggi. Notably, the primary schools and sports clubs would play critical roles in ensuring healthy foods are served or consumed within their precincts. While, as organizations advocating for healthy living, the non-governmental organizations such as Diabetes Australia, ANF, Heart Foundation are fundamental actors in the promotion of healthy eating. The Diabetes Australia, for instance, is envisioned to reduce the prevalence of diabetes among the public population through healthy diet advocacy roles and is engaged in promoting public awareness about diabetes through various educative programs besides supporting diabetes patients. Similarly, the Heart Foundation is focused on the healthy heart of individuals and, therefore, is focused on healthy eating to reduce the prevalence of heart diseases. The local government of Wonthaggi is responsible for policy implementations in the region and is therefore, a crucial stakeholder in ensuring the success of the health promotion project by seeing it through its implementation phase. However, to achieve the aims of this project, community consultation would be critical. Effective community engagement and collaboration with its members are critical in health services promotion intended to improve public health. Every individual in a community tend to have a unique idea about what the health services promotion should tackle (Hillestad, Berkowitz, 2012). Therefore, to effectively promote the health program, engaging the target community is critical. This would be ensure putting into consideration the needs of individuals and the social context of the target community that include their culture, belief and the organizations that serve them. Culture and beliefs of a community directly affect the public health of that community by influencing perceptions about illness and their treatments, and use of health services (Mattson, Basu, 2010). Also, community mobilization would ensure mobilization of necessary resources, generation of support from the target community, dissemination of relevant information and fostering of cooperation across all sectors of the target community (Hillestad, Berkowitz, 2012). By developing educational, training and technical support materials and programs to the target community members about healthy eating, I would build the capacity to establish a full understanding by the target community about the health promotion program. Thus, the full understanding of the program would make the target community members receptive to the program by inducing support from affected individuals in the community.

Health message/ logo for the promotion

“You are setting them up to fail.”

This logo would cry out to the parents in Wonthaggi against the culture of poor diet that only spells out health failure for the children. The logo would draw the attention of the parents to the manner in which they bring up the children as a determinant of their future health. If the children are brought up by poor diet, they are set up to fail in maintaining good health in future and as a result, parents should seek to ensure healthy eating for the children to have a healthy living through into the future. 

Health promotion activity that will promote the health logo

To promote the chosen health promotion logo to the target group, posters bearing the health logo would be placed around the community, sporting clubs, in schools and health clinics.  The local newspaper would be used to run this logo as one of their pages, and you would write a section to explain the poster and tips or ideas on how to reduce the risks of diabetes through healthy eating and give an overview of diabetes and how diabetes affects every day living. Besides, you would use local radio broadcasting organizations to broadcast the message as part of advertising programs. You would engage in television shows to explain the health logo and highlight on the association between diabetes and poor diet while explaining how the relevance of the logo to my proposed intervention measures.  

Project management

This project will be managed with the support from the Nutrition Section, Department of Health of Australia in collaboration with the local government of Wonthaggi and Regional Experts.

Strategies

The strategies that would be employed in this project involves establishing working relationships with key nutritionists in Wonthaggi and utilizing the existing expertise to share and access information. You would also join the relevant mailing lists and discussion groups that are available within the target group as well as researching the relevant topics to inform reporting. Moreover, you would highlight the focus of study, partner with Australian nutrition section staff to prepare and finalize reports. Finally, you would consider the opportunity of progress and advocate for high-level support from Department of Health of Australia.

How the success of this health promotion will be evaluated

The evaluation of the success of this project would be done by having a school nurse run repeated, and regular health checks in primary schools among children in attendance and the observations made would be monitored over time to evaluate whether the project has had an impact on the target population. Using semi-structure interviews you would seek public opinion on the influence the project has had on their shopping culture. Besides, surveys and questionnaires would be used to gather information from the public about the effectiveness of the project on their eating habits by asking questions that reveal whether the poster has made the public shop differently and buy different kinds of food other than their usual tradition of shopping.

Project cost

The project is estimated to cost 46,000 Australian dollars including; Temporary project staff that would cost 30,000 dollars, associated non-labor, and corporate overheads would cost about 5,00 dollars and other costs such as travel and production of reports that would amount to 11,000 dollars.

Project funding

This project is funded by personal savings with much financial support from Australian health department, grants from well-wishers and donations from friends.

Assumptions

It is assumed that all stakeholders will be actively involved in supporting the project and ensuring its success. Besides, it is also assumed that there will be enough funding to facilitate implementation of the recommendations of the project.

Constraints

There are potential constraints anticipated in reaching these communities. These potential barriers include; low penetration of health education methods in most parts of the target population, limited financial resources to fully meet the general needs of the target population, limited reach of small group programming and individual counseling and, insufficient technology development among the target population that hinders digital dissemination of relevant information. To overcome these barriers, more financial support would be solicited for from the government and the relevant health organizations as well as donors and well-wishers to help meet the individual needs of the target population, and to facilitate sufficient reach to the population through several units of small group programming and individual counselling (Williams, Khanfar, Harrington, Loudon, 2011). Also, you would adopt a unique and efficient health education method that would penetrate through all sectors of the target population at a reasonable pace.

Exclusions       

The project will not address issues of economic trade on food products between Australia and other countries. However, this is a big concern in dealing with healthy eating as most of the food products imported promote poor diet.

Conclusion

Unhealthy eating is a significant health risk factor for diabetes, and public education on the disease awareness and prevention is critical for promoting healthy eating so as to reduce the prevalence of the disease. The healthy eating habits must be ensured for the children to enhance better health beyond childhood. Therefore, this project would be of significance in creating awareness on the importance of healthy eating through public education on the disease prevention among the target population.