Background and Problem Statement
The assignment deals with the issue of increasing incidence of heart disease due to obesity and diabetes, in Australia. The main focus of the paper is the health promotion plan for addressing the issue of the high prevalence of heart disease. The report aims to develop health promotion program, focussing on the sports-based intervention. Considering the time and budget limitations, the intervention is focused on the specific community of Australia named Tasmania, which was found with the high rate of disease as per the report by the Heart Foundations (Heart Foundation, 2018). People of this area have been found to experience the highest rate of angina, heart attack or stroke. They are also at risk of repeated attack (Abs.gov.au, 2018). The assignment discusses the health issue in details and its future implication. The rationale for the sports-based health promotion plan is discussed in details, along with steps of implementing the interventions, collaboration with partners, timeline, budget plan and evaluation strategies.
There is an increasing incidence of heart disease in Australia in 2016. Heart disease comprises of heart problems, such as blood vessel disease or stroke. It is the major cause of death in Australia and one of the leading diseases in the world. In every 12 minutes, one person is killed due to heart disease. In 2014-2015, more than 3% of the population was found to have long-term CHD condition. This accounts to 620,000 Australians. In 2016, all the 12% deaths were due to heart disease (Heart Foundation, 2018; ABC News, 2018, Nichols et al., 2016). Heart disease is one of the largest chronic health problems in Australia. It is the increasing burden on the economy despite several burdens in last few years.
The focus of the paper is to promote health program in Tasmania. Based on the heart foundation report, increasing number of people are experiencing uncontrolled high blood pressure and unmanaged high cholesterol. As per the heart foundation reports, 29.9% of the people in North East Tasmania have the highest rate of cardiovascular disease. More than 47% of the people in south-east Tasmania have the highest rate of cholesterol. A 33% of them also have the high rate of obesity, and less than 29% were found to be active (Abs.gov.au, 2018, Heart Foundation, 2018; ABC News, 2018; Nichols et al., 2016).
The population highly vulnerable to the heart disease and hospitalisations includes people from the low socioeconomic group, Indigenous communities, and those living in remote locations. People with social disadvantage poorly access health care and consume less healthy food. These people are socially isolated and thus have poor awareness of early interventions. They are many with no medical insurances, poverty, unemployment, which is significantly affecting the healthy choices. Heart disease was highly prevalent among obese and diabetic people. According to World Health Organisation, these are the risk factor for heart disease in the long run (www.abc.net.au, 2018; Mendis, Davis & Norrving, 2015). The issue is occurring as the awareness among people about heart disease as the leading cause of the death is very poor. In Tasmania, most of the people as per the Heart Foundation’s chief executive were yet to experience heart attacks or strokes. They have several risk factors of heart attack and strokes such as stroke, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, smoking, and alcohol (Piepoli et al., 2016; Nichols et al., 2016).
The Health Promotion Plan
Children are the main focus for the health promotion plan in this assignment. It is because in Tasmania 23.1% of the children aged 2-17 years were found to be overweight, 8.1% were found to be obese. These children were found to be mainly living sedentary lifestyle. There is also combined prevalence of overweight and obesity (Nichols et al., 2016; Roberts et al., 2014). These children have a high risk of heart disease in adulthood. It is because the adults who were suffering from heart disease were also found to be obese in childhood.
A health promotion program will be developed to address the issue. The program will be targeted to main children in Tasmania, who are at risk of heart disease in their near future due to obesity and diabetes. The children of grade 8 will be targeted for this short-term project. Once the plan is successful, it may be implemented on the wider scale.
The main goal of health promotion plan is
- Develop interactive health education program through social media for children in a township in Tasmania
- Create awareness about the heart disease- symptoms, risk factors and future implications
- Educate about preventive strategies
- Promote health through sports-based intervention- like football and in setting present the health messages
- Assess the acceptability of the program
- Measure changes in health knowledge of children after intervention
The rationale for children as the target for this health promotion plan is the high prevalence of obese and diabetic children and risk for heart attack in the near future (Roberts et al., 2014; Ayer et al., 2015).
The rationale for the sports-based intervention is the significant physical benefits. According to “United Nations Inter-agency Task Force”, participating in sports have contributed to people’s ability to live healthy lifestyle. Sports are associated with increased life expectancy, improve well being, and decrease the risk of non-communicable disease. According to Taskforce report, sports engagement increases self-esteem and confidence, decrease depression and enhance the discipline, resilience and teamwork (Kokko, 2016). According to World Health Organisation, engaging in 30 minutes of physical activity a day may have significant health benefits. Exercises have been associated with a decrease in hypertension, cholesterol, and diabetes-related symptoms (Cleland et al., 2014). According to Fuller et al. (2010) many organisations in the world have adopted football-based activities to raise awareness and increase healthy lifestyle habits among people
The health promotion program is guided by empowerment theory. It is useful for understanding the complexities of increasing the physical activity levels through sports-based health intervention. This theory focuses on social relation of power. It explains the processes by which personal and social aspects of life allow and constraint behaviour. People have the ability to take control of their life but are affected by demographic and contextual factor. Addressing these factors will empower people to take control of their life (Tengland, 2016). Sports interventions will empower children and increase their self esteem to change behaviour. It will improve life of inactive children by tailoring sports accordingly. The barriers such as environmental, political, sociocultural, and economic factors to participation in sports can be explained by empowerment theory.
Selection of School and Children
The social cognitive theory also underpins the football-based health program. According to this theory, health behaviour is affected by personal life experiences, as well as environmental factors. This theory allows supporting people by instilling expectations and self-efficacy. This theory also focuses on observational learning. When a person observes other reaping benefits of healthy behaviour, then he or she is highly likely to engage in similar behaviour. Sports interventions will help children to observe each other and reinforce healthy behaviour instead of a sedentary lifestyle. It will increase the behavioural capability that is to develop a skill to perform the behaviour. Sports is also associated with high self-efficacy (Young et al., 2016).
Social media campaign to contact with relevant people
Before starting with the sports-based health intervention program, the community people of Tasmania will be acquainted with the program and its benefits. The aim of the sports-based intervention for children in grade 8 will be informed to people along with purpose and time. The benefits of participating in the program will be highlighted. The social media tools to be used are Facebook. It is the best way to engage school students, teachers, coaches and parents, resolve their queries and take consent if they want to be the part of the sport-based intervention. Videos based on sports like football and how it improves health will be posted (Brusse et al., 2014).
The rationale for using social media campaign or marketing of the sports-based health promotion plan is the large numbers of people using social media on a daily basis including school students. Therefore, it is the evidence-based option for health promotion. Even healthcare providers use social networking sites for creating awareness on various health issues (Ventola, 2014). For example, Breast cancer prevention Facebook page. Zhang et al., 2015 conducted social media-based exercise and assessed the influence of improving the physical activity after 13-weeks of participation. As per the results, there was an increase in enrolment into exercise classes among both young and older adults after watching the promotional messages and health videos on Facebook. It will help the children and parents to get awareness of lifestyle changes to prevent heart disease in future.
Selection of school and children
Availability of schools will be identified to ensure it can better support the intervention. One school will be located within township of Tasmania. The school will be recruited to the program randomly through social media page. Grade 8 children will be recruited to the main part of the study. Both female and male children will be recruited for football based intervention. They will be asked to undertake Football for health programme
Rationale for Sports-Based Intervention
The final selection of the audience will be determined from collaboration with schools and parents. Consent will be taken from school authorities as well as from parents. Only children who are willing to participate will be taken into consideration. The purpose of the program and befits will be shared through a letter with the administrators of schools as well as parents. Children will be admitted for intervention only after approval from school and parents as also mentioned in similar intervention in (Fuller et al., 2010).
Staff and coach recruitment
From local community 23 coaches will be recruited, and 10 of them will act as standby and work when other coaches will be absent. Coach groups comprise of group of men and women who can speak in local languages fluently and could be trained as coaches/instructor for the intervention. It will be ensured that the men and women will have cultural awareness and recruited if they are familiar with the local customs and practices. A coach guide will be prepared that will contain a summary of the purpose of the promotion plan and what should be the commitment of coaches to implement the program on a day to day business.
For posting health-related motivated messages on the Facebook page, appropriate staff will be recruited. They will develop appropriate content related to football-based health education. Facebook fans will be engaged through share, comment, like and upload options and follow us (Barry et al., 2014).
Potential partnerships include Non-governmental organisations and other local organisations with sufficient experience in delivering the football-based health education programme.
Approval for intervention
Approval will be taken to deliver the program in school time from the health science faculty nearby the community as well as the education department to maintain ethics (McPhail?Bell et al., 2015).
Before starting with the sports-based interventions, the grade 8 children will be subjected to initial health assessment to observe the vital signs and health profile. It will be later compared to the health status after the intervention. The health profile may include the height, weight, BMI, waist circumference, blood pressure, cholesterol level, heart rate, respiratory rate and pulse rate. Using the questionnaire, the participating children will be assessed for their awareness on the importance of sports and health benefits and the rise in awareness will be compared after interventions (Eldredge et al., 2016).
Health messages
For social media page and school sports interventions the health messages will include, “eat healthy live healthy”, “play football to fight obesity” and others and each of them will be linked to football skills as given below-
|
Session |
Health message |
Football skills |
Risk factors |
|
1 |
Play football (physical exercise) |
Play football |
Physical inactivity, high blood pressure, BMI, cholesterol |
|
2 |
Avoid junk food |
Dribbling |
Eating fat-rich foods |
|
3 |
Eat balanced diet |
Building fitness |
Overweight Poor intake of fruits and vegetables |
|
4 |
Fair play |
Teamwork |
Social and family support |
|
5 |
Take regular health check-up |
Goalkeeping |
Improper protection of health |
|
6 |
Protection from sugar-rich foods |
Heading |
Overeating candy and flavoured drinks |
Theoretical Framework
The messages will be decided in collaboration by the coaches as well as teachers.
The game of football will be mirrored where each session will be kept for 90 minutes. There will be two halves, and each will be of 45 minutes. In the first, half children will play football. They will be coached in specific skills and the second half they will play fair. In this half, the children will be educated to focus on heart disease and how it is related to obesity and diabetes. They will be explained how it is caused, risk factors, and how can it be prevented through sports participation.
After playing football, the children will be asked to give a short review on the previous week’s football assignment, which they will complete at home. They will ask to take five warm-up exercises for injury preventions the children will be given adequate instructions. They will be asked to present the next week’s homework for football. For each participant, a praise partner will be assigned (Fuller et al., 2010).
For play fair, the children will be asked to present the home-based assignment on health and present facts and learnings about each health message, interact about these health messages in Facebook. The children will be asked to present the understanding of messages with link to the football skills. They will be asked to comment on the praises of their partner’s positive actions and attitudes demonstrated by children in each session (Fuller et al., 2010).
Each coach will be given the copy of Guide, and they will be subjected to the training programme for five days. It will cover both aspects of the Play Football and Play Fair before delivering the Football based intervention.
The health promotion plan using the sports-based intervention will be implemented within timeline of one year. It may be continued based on the outcomes for more years. It may take one month approximately to execute the plan. The time retrospective plan is presented to the team (Eldredge et al., 2016).
2018 campaign timescale
|
Activities |
Timescale |
|
Partnership engagements Hiring staff |
June- July 2018 |
|
Plan project Social media page sports centres collaboration security requirements |
July- Aug 2018 |
|
Development of protocols, Prepare survey questionnaires guiding coaches training of volunteers |
Sept- Nov 2018 |
|
Baseline data analysis |
Nov- Dec 2018 |
|
Implementation |
Jan onwards |
|
Evaluation |
March- July 2019 |
Both the social media campaign and the football intervention will be a low cost budget as collaboration will be done with the non-government organisations. A budget plan is prepared approximately which may be subjected to change-
For social media campaign, the budget of $ 100 is as follows-
|
Particulars |
Cost $ |
|
Advertisement |
40 |
|
Social media management |
10 |
|
Analytics |
10 |
|
Graphics, Photos, and Videos |
40 |
For the football-based health education, the budget of ($500) is as follows
|
Particulars |
Cost $ |
|
Recruitment of coaches |
100 |
|
Resources such as football, first aid, guidebook |
200 |
|
Preparation of questionnaires |
100 |
|
Maintain database of records before and after interventions |
100 |
Evaluation of social media campaign on sports-based interventions
- Monitor the traffic in facebook
- Count number of clicks through Adobe SiteCatalyst(Cdc.gov, 2018).
- report for automatically delivered metrics
Social Media Campaign to Contact with Relevant People
Monitoring and evaluation of football interventions
Individual coaches will be asked to record the attendances of each child at each session. Further questionnaires will be used to assess the project implementation and its outcomes. The questionnaires for children will contain twenty health-related statements that will help obtain the mixed positive and negative responses. The children of grade will get health knowledge questionnaire both before and after interventions. The later will be related to the Play Football + Play Fair as well as follow up of three months. Further questionnaire will be related to programme assessment (three months follow and after intervention). Children will be asked to state their opinions on statement such as “football will not improve heart condition” (Fuller et al., 2010). A questionnaire will be provided to the coaches that will contain 10 statements related to training course and six statements will comprise of Football for health programme. The statements will be both positively and negatively worded. It will help anticipate both the positive and negative responses. In both cases, a five-point Likert scale will be used for questionnaires as also used by (Eldredge et al., 2016). All the questionnaires will be presented in both local languages as well as in English.
Further after the interventions, the health data will be collected like BMI once again to compare with the initial data (Flint et al., 2014).
Following the assessment of the subjective and objective outcomes of the programmes, suggestions are made for future programme implementation with more participants as well as for evaluation.
Success of the intervention will be evident from the following-
- Increase in physical activity among children through football
- Increase in fruits and vegetable consumption by grade 8 children
- Show positive response to the health intervention (both by coach and children)
- Increased level of awareness of how obesity and diabetes is associated with heart disease
- Increased awareness of benefits of sports
- Improvement in BMI data after interventions as well as confidence and self-esteem
- Collection of more funds after interventions
- Overall health improvement in non overweight children
- Sport centres to give more support for future programs like racing, walking, cycling and others (Aldred &Jungnickel 2014)
- Parents show willingness to engage in modifying the lifestyle of their obese children and diabetic children
The promotion plan may be limited due to ineffective coordination and approach by parents, teachers, and children. There may be social and cultural obligations in allowing children to participate in sports by Indigenous communities. Large-scale implementation of the program including both adults and children may be complicated both in time and budget.
Conclusion
Sports based health promotions is the cost-effective method. It is one of the forms of the preventive medicine to reduce the health care costs dramatically. The health promotion plan based on sports is developed taking ideas from the literature review. Linking valuable health messages to Football that can help children overcome sedentary lifestyle may have significant health benefits. It will improve health knowledge and a number of health-related issues. By successfully implementing this Football based health promotion among children, there may be a decline in obesity and diabetes prevalence. The similar project may be implemented with a large group of participants already having heart disease in a community of Tasmania, to decrease the risk of hospital admission for heart disease. Social media is also useful in interacting with large people at a same time, and promote health. It is the useful tool to address public health concerns by facilitating interactions with patients and health care providers.
References
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