Health Promotion Assignment: Increasing Stress and Hypertension Among Young Adults in Sydney

This assignment proposes a health promotional program in Sydney, Australia, for young adults suffering from stress and depression. It includes need assessment, identification of key issues, aims, objectives, strategies, and evaluation of interventions. The target population is young adults aged 18 to 35 years. The primary aim is to understand the stress and depression condition affecting the mental balance of young adults and provide interventions to overcome those conditions. The main issue identified is lack of awareness and social or mental barriers or hesitation. The program aims to provide complete awareness about mental health, depression, and stress among people successfully.

Running head: HEALTH PROMOTION ASSIGNMENT
INCREASING STRESS AND HYPERTENSION AMONG YOUNG ADULTS IN SYNDEY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
As per the World Health Organization (2018), health promotional program is a process
through which people are enabled to have complete control over their health improvement, using
a range of social and medical interventions (Ross et al., 2014). Stress and depression are the
second most affecting disorder which is affecting the mankind and causing them to suffer from
severe physical and mental trauma. This assignment discusses and proposes a health promotional
program in Sydney Australia among young adults (18 to 35 years) who are severely affected
with stress and depression (Barry et al., 2013). In the course, starting from need assessment to
evaluation of interventions, all the steps health promotion in a community will be followed.
Finally, in the appendix section, a pamphlet of a teaching plan will be attached.
Identification of needs
Need assessment of a community is a vital step as a community consists of different
people with different ethnicity, religion, background and age group and hence their needs also
differ from one another (Eldredge et al., 2016). Need is known as the presence of certain
situations presence of which helps people to achieve their mental peace, physical health and
prosperity in life and absence hinders their growth (Lewis, 2015). These needs are important for
the community for their overall growth, development and quality health. While conducting a
need assessment, it is important for the assessor to understand the type of needs the community
has as the interventions and its success will depend on the proper evaluation of the process
(Neiger et al., 2012). The type of needs can be divided in four categories such as the comparative
need, normative need, expressed need, and felt need (Ross et al., 2014). The comparative needs
that is obtained from complete examination of the health service available to the community and
comparing it to another service provided to a similar geographical area (Barry et a., 2013). The

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felt is need is conveyed by the people of the community whereas the expressed need is inferred
by detailed observation of the community. The fourth need or normative need is established by
statistical data, opinions or facts (Issel & Wells, 2017). These needs are the basis of need
assessment and in this proposal, one of these will be used to assess the need of the target
population in Sydney (Tamrat & Kachnowski, 2012).
Target population and key issues
The chosen population for this health promotion proposal are the young adults from 18 to
35 years of Sydney. As per the data collected from Australian health departments and the
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2018), 45% people are currently suffering from mental health,
stress depression in the city of Sydney or has a chance to face this in their lifetime (O’neil et al.,
2014). In a latest survey by Mission Australia Youth survey, every 1 in 4 young adults is
suffering from stress and mental issue, which starts at teen years and the great number of
indigenous and younger women are suffering from the chance of being affected with it (Schmied
et al., 2013). Increased work pressure, health and environmental stressors, imbalanced personal
and professional life, and others are the primary reason behind such mental health which is not
being conveyed to the correct people on correct time and hence creates issues for people in such
areas (Francis et al., 2012).
There is a wide range of personal, educational, or professional issues due to which this
generation can feel depressed about and hence, their needs are mostly being neglected or not met
by the health promotional events in Australia (Schmied et al., 2013). There are several symptoms
using which identification of such depression stress or any mental disturbance in younger
generation could be identified such as grumpiness, feeling guilty or worthless, having suicidal
ideations and all (Francis et al., 2012). Due to these, people started withdrawing themselves from

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society, family, suffer from behavioral shift, inability to focus on work or drug and alcohol.
Besides these above mentioned facts, such people are unable to reach to proper medication due
to several social barriers, mental stress and trauma and hence, it is one of the major factors for
the need assessment process in the proposed health promotion (O’neil et al., 2014).
For this conduction of the need assessment both normative and felt needs of the people of
the city Sydney will be analyzed and at the end of the assessment results will be merged to obtain
a singular and steady result so that the aims goals and objectives could be developed to
determine one specific changes to bring in the depressed and stressed life of the people of
Australia (O’neil et al., 2014). Hence, for the conduction of the assessment surveys with people
of age 18 to 35 will be done and their mental physical and professional stress will be identified
by identifying the involved stressors (Francis et al., 2012). A health promotional assessment
team including a physician, mental health physician, psychiatrist, counsellor and a nursing
professional will be asked to conduct this survey at different places of the city, around schools’
colleges, offices, market place so that more and more interaction with these age group could be
done, and issues are identified (Tamrat & Kachnowski, 2012).
After completing the need assessment, it was seen that hesitation and lack of awareness
about mental health and depression ss on of the major issues due to which people are not being
able to reach medical treatment or help hence government should focus in this area other than
changing laws and policies for medical treatment (Schmied et al., 2013). Therefore, the clear
issue which is identified from this assessment is lack of awareness and social or mental barrier or
hesitation. This issue will only be addressed of the health promotional program aims to provide
complete awareness about mental health, depression and stress among people successfully. This

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is the reason due to which this need assessment was important for the health care promotional
program for the young adults of city of Sydney Australia (Francis et al., 2012).
Aim/goal
the primary aim of this health promotion proposal is to aim to the key health issues which
is affecting the young adults of Sydney ranging from 18 to 35-year-old. Mental health is a major
health concern for the entire world and in Australia more than 45 % are already suffering from
mild to severe mental conditions which is increasing the alarming condition for the healthcare
facilities. Risk factors of this condition could be physical and mental but majorly it affects the
nation, its progress and economy as majority of the younger generation becomes affected to this
disorder and due to social stigma, fear ad confusion are unable to reach to a health professional
or counsellor who can help them to overcome the situation. Hence, as per the target population,
the primary aim of the health promotional program will be understanding the stress and
depression condition which affect the mental balance of the young adults (18 to 35 year old) and
the condition can be educational, professional or personal. Further, after identifying the issues,
providing the people with interventions so that they can easily overcome those condition and
recover from their mental ailment.
Objectives
The objective for this health promotion will be dependent on tow aspects, long-term and
short-term objectives. The short-term objectives for this promotional program will be providing
the community with awareness regarding depression and mental health so that they can
overcome their social stigma and could contact healthcare physicians around them for their
further mental ailments. On the other hand, the long-term goal will be providing them with

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interventions and activities so that they can overcome their depression, stress and can avoid the
suicidal ideation which comes along. Their stress and depression.
If the objectives are arranged in SMART framework it would be:
Specific: introduce the effect of mental health, depression and stress to the young aged
people of city of Sydney and then help them or support them with healthcare intervention.
Measurable: the change obtained will be compared with the people who do not receive
such healthcare intervention to measure the effectiveness of the interventions of health
promotion program.
Achievable: this will be achieved by arranging educational sessions, awareness programs
and others to spread the awareness about mental health and illness.
Realistic: these activities will be conducted so that people can understand these in their
real and practical life and can take effective steps to control the stressors in their life.
Time limited: to achieve these objectives and goals, the process will be continued for 5
months in different places of the city so that majority of the people from the target group could
be enlightened and then from them others can be aware about the stress and depression health
issues.
Risks and obstacles
The risk and obstacles which will be faced while conducting these health promotional
programs around the city will be economic, employee related, place related and technologies and
other secondary material related (Kushi et al., 2012). These are the primary issues which will be
faced by the healthcare facilities while conducting the health promotional program in the city.

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The secondary issue which will be faced, will be the lack of health education, dealing with social
stigma, and thinking that mental condition are not an issue which could be shared or discussed
with others (Ross et al., 2014). These obstacles affects the affected people as they are not able to
overcome the social stigma and do not share their mental issues with others or any healthcare
professionals. Hence, it is considered as a social stigma for the healthcare facilities of health
promotional program developer (Barry et al., 2013).
Strategies to overcome and implementation of plan
The first strategy which will be used to overcome the economic barrier will be
advertisements for sponsorship and stakeholders for the healthcare promotional program.
Besides this, the government, healthcare department and the local government will also be asked
for their financial as well as official help so that the health promotional program could be
successfully conducted and completed. As per Francis et al. (2012) governmental help in health
promotional program helps both the people and healthcare professionals to achieve their goals
and targets within the time. Further, for the employment related issues prior to organize the
program all the organizers will be advertizing for the employment and volunteers from different
governmental and non-governmental organizations so that all these awareness programs,
educational sessions and others could be conducted easily (Tamrat & Kachnowski, 2012). On the
other hand, the healthcare professionals who will be included in the process will depend on their
experience of dealing with such process so that they can deal with any issues of target population
in the city of Sydney. Both the national and local level of strategies related to completion of the
health promotional program will be joined so that it could be successfully implemented for the
benefit of target population in Sydney (Neiger et al., 2012).

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Evaluation of these interventions
Evaluation is an important process which helps to provide an idea that the interventions
applied to the target population, the goals, aims and objectives are met or not. This is an
efficiency measuring tool which helps to understand that it could be appropriately applied or not.
All the principles, processes and principles of health promotional program are properly applied
or not is assessed by the evaluation processes. As per Rickwood et al. (2014), it is a very
important process for the health promotional program and its successful implementation. There
are three type of evaluation which will be applied and these are process evaluation, impact
evaluation and the outcome evaluation. As per the process evaluation, it measures that the main
theme or idea of the healthcare promotional program could be delivered to the target population
and the community meets their needs using the process (Issel & Wells, 2017). In this health
promotion it is a relevant evaluation process as it also deals with spreading awareness and the
need of healthcare interventions for mental issues and hence process evaluation will be an
important process. Impact evaluation is another process using which, it could be easier to achieve
the short-term goals and hence it is an important evaluation goal. In this process also, healthcare
promotion program requires several short term goals and hence, this evaluation program is an
important to achieve for this promotional campaign (World Health Organization, 2014).
Conclusion
Health promotional program is an important step using which awareness, healthcare
interventions and other techniques could be shared to people of a community in which several
health issues are becoming major concern and people are not aware about it. In this assignment, a
health promotional plan was organized for the people of Sydney of 18 to 35 year age and
suffering from stress depression and other mental issues. Further a need assessment was carried

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out and eventually the health promotional action plan with interventions and strategies were
implemented and evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively.

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References
Barry, M. M., Clarke, A. M., Jenkins, R., & Patel, V. (2013). A systematic review of the
effectiveness of mental health promotion interventions for young people in low and
middle income countries. BMC public health, 13(1), 835.
Eldredge, L. K. B., Markham, C. M., Ruiter, R. A., Kok, G., Fernandez, M. E., & Parcel, G. S.
(2016). Planning health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach. John
Wiley & Sons.
Francis, J., Wood, L. J., Knuiman, M., & Giles-Corti, B. (2012). Quality or quantity? Exploring
the relationship between Public Open Space attributes and mental health in Perth,
Western Australia. Social science & medicine, 74(10), 1570-1577.
Issel, L. M., & Wells, R. (2017). Health program planning and evaluation. Jones & Bartlett
Learning.
Kushi, L. H., Doyle, C., McCullough, M., Rock, C. L., Demark‐Wahnefried, W., Bandera, E. V.,
... & American Cancer Society 2010 Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory
Committee. (2012). American Cancer Society Guidelines on nutrition and physical
activity for cancer prevention: reducing the risk of cancer with healthy food choices and
physical activity. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, 62(1), 30-67.

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Lewis, S. (2015). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), 473-475.
Neiger, B. L., Thackeray, R., Van Wagenen, S. A., Hanson, C. L., West, J. H., Barnes, M. D., &
Fagen, M. C. (2012). Use of social media in health promotion: purposes, key
performance indicators, and evaluation metrics. Health promotion practice, 13(2), 159-
164.
O’neil, A., Quirk, S. E., Housden, S., Brennan, S. L., Williams, L. J., Pasco, J. A., ... & Jacka, F.
N. (2014). Relationship between diet and mental health in children and adolescents: a
systematic review. American journal of public health, 104(10), e31-e42.
Rickwood, D. J., Telford, N. R., Parker, A. G., Tanti, C. J., & McGorry, P. D. (2014). Headspace
—Australia’s innovation in youth mental health: who are the clients and why are they
presenting. Med J Aust, 200(2), 108-11.
Ross, A. C., Caballero, B., Cousins, R. J., Tucker, K. L., & Ziegler, T. R. (2014). Modern
nutrition in health and disease(No. Ed. 11). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Schmied, V., Johnson, M., Naidoo, N., Austin, M. P., Matthey, S., Kemp, L., ... & Yeo, A.
(2013). Maternal mental health in Australia and New Zealand: a review of longitudinal
studies. Women and Birth, 26(3), 167-178.
Tamrat, T., & Kachnowski, S. (2012). Special delivery: an analysis of mHealth in maternal and
newborn health programs and their outcomes around the world. Maternal and child
health journal, 16(5), 1092-1101.

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World Health Organization, (2018). Health promotional program. Retrieved from:
http://www.who.int/topics/health_promotion/en/
World Health Organization. (2014). Social determinants of mental health. World Health
Organization.

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Appendix: teaching plan pamphlet (linear framework)
Teaching objectives:
The teaching objectives for teaching plan related to healthcare promotional plan will
include:
 To provide all the healthcare professionals educational and presentation related
education so that they can help the target population.
 To provide healthcare professionals an idea so that they can understand the type
of issues they will be facing (Edelman, Mandle & Kudzma, 2017)
Summary of the tasks/actions:
The actions which will be taking are
 Providing the healthcare professionals with educational presentations so that
while conducting health interventions they can use latest and critically used
interventions in the benefit of patients.
 They can spread awareness and make people use the interventions for their benefit
(Eldredge et al., 2016).
Material/equipment
Paper, pen, educational center, presentation material, and experienced educator so that
volunteers, healthcare professionals can properly understand the need of it.
References:
Edelman, C. L., Mandle, C. L., & Kudzma, E. C. (2017). Health Promotion Throughout the Life
Span-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.

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Eldredge, L. K. B., Markham, C. M., Ruiter, R. A., Kok, G., Fernandez, M. E., & Parcel, G. S.
(2016). Planning health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach. John
Wiley & Sons.
Malik, S. H., Blake, H., & Suggs, L. S. (2014). A systematic review of workplace health
promotion interventions for increasing physical activity. British journal of health
psychology, 19(1), 149-180.
Take home tasks:
They will be asked to write five strategies and processes using which everyday 20 target
population will be added in the promotional program (Malik, Blake & Suggs, 2014).