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A short course in writing for publication for health promotion practitioners
Author(s) -
Bruce Emma,
Keleher Helen
Publication year - 2010
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/he10239
Subject(s) - health promotion , population health , medical education , community health , publication , intervention (counseling) , medicine , health economics , promotion (chess) , publishing , project commissioning , public relations , public health , nursing , political science , advertising , business , politics , law
Issue addressed Many good health promotion programs are implemented and evaluated but not published. The potential for the field to learn from these programs is therefore reduced. This article describes the design of an intervention to increase skills and confidence in writing for publication amongst health promotion practitioners in the Eastern Metropolitan Region (EMR) of Victoria. Methods Health promotion practitioners from Community and Women's Health funded organisations in the EMR participated in the intervention, which was based on peer learning principles through a Short Course with key design elements. Two workshops where held over a two month period with a peer review process in between. Results Of the 26 novice participants in the workshops, 14 wrote an article that was published in some form. At four weeks post the course, another four had an article in draft format which they planned to submit in the near future. All participants indicated a desire to continue to write for publication. Conclusions Expecting health promotion practitioners to publish their work has had limited success in the past. This relatively short intervention has shown that to succeed, practitioners require a range of supports to enable them to gain the skills and confidence needed to write for publication. So what Writing for publication by practitioners is achievable, and an important mechanism for disseminating the results of health promotion practice. There is much scope for health promotion practitioners to be making a greater contribution to the evidence base.