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Evaluating community participation in a Healthy Islands setting: towards evidence‐based decision making
Author(s) -
Brear M.,
Powis B.,
O'Leary Z.,
Davidson D.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
health promotion journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.515
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 2201-1617
pISSN - 1036-1073
DOI - 10.1071/he04137
Subject(s) - population health , community health , community engagement , health promotion , inclusion (mineral) , population , public relations , psychological intervention , promotion (chess) , indigenous , medicine , nursing , public health , environmental health , political science , sociology , social science , ecology , politics , law , biology
Issue addressed The Healthy Island concept has given rise to many health promotion initiatives throughout the Pacific, including the use of ‘settings’ to reorient environmental health (EH) practice. The apparent success of such approaches has seen a major shift in the practice of EH practitioners, yet formal evaluation of either the process or outcomes is rarely undertaken. Methods This paper examines the issue of community participation in one such settings project through the development, distribution, and analysis of a questionnaire distributed to 200 residents in the Makoi district of Fiji. The questionnaire explored processes and outcomes related to the implementation of a Healthy Islands settings project in the Makoi community and assessed whether a core stated goal of the Makoi Healthy Island project, namely community‐wide participation, had been met. Results/Conclusions: The study found that awareness of health promotion interventions was not evenly distributed across various sectors of the population and that community support structures were not being accessed by the full range of the target population. The use of the Methodist Church as a single entry point to the Makoi community in isolation from a possible range of entry points is a likely contributor in not allowing for the racial and cultural inclusion the project had aimed for. The study concludes with recommendations for entry into settings more likely to engage the full range of stakeholders and community members. So what? This study highlights that engagement in health promotion initiatives is highly reliant on access strategies. It also suggests that goals relating to evidence‐based decision‐making can only be met if critical evaluative strategies are embedded in health promotion project planning from the inception.