Health Promotion for Australian Refugees

Running Head: HEALTH PROMOTION
HEALTH PROMOTION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1HEALTH PROMOTION
Introduction
Throughout Australia, refugees are faced with different conditions from those of the
general population. Migration is a key driver of tuberculosis (TB) in many low incidence
settings, with most TB cases being due to overseas reactivation of latent TB (LTBI). A better
understanding for LTBI peril in the heterogeneous migrant communities would help the
health plan (Masters et al., 2018). Australia's average prevalence of LTBI is low. Some
residents, particularly migrants from high incidence settings, may have significantly higher
LTBI risk, and these findings require tailor-made public health strategies to reduce the risk
and impact of potential TB disease.
Health promotion allows individuals to gain influence over their own health. This
covers broad range of social and environmental initiatives aimed at improving and protecting
the health and quality of life of individuals by identifying and avoiding the root causes of ill
health, not only by focusing on prevention and cure (Benjumea et al., 2019). Health
promotion involves officials across all agencies to transform health into a core policy line of
government. It ensures that they have to affect health implications in all the decisions they
make and promote policies that prevent people from getting sick and to protect them from
any injury (Dale et al., 2018). Health literacy on the other hand, helps the individuals to get
the skills, knowledge and correct information regarding the disease that would assist them to
make healthy choices.
Planning health promotion
The program that is used for the treatment and health promotion of TB among the
Australian refugees involves the National Tuberculosis Advisory Committee and their
associated work plan. The first goal is to ensure the control of TB through the treatment,
rapid diagnosis and spreading awareness about TB (World Health Organization., 2019). The

2HEALTH PROMOTION
objective of such a goal is to ensure treatment facility to all the people at correct times and
the spreading of awareness among the individuals regarding the disease. The next goal
involves the improvement in the surveillance and reporting of the disease. Under this goal the
main aim is to ensure that all the cases of TB are being reported at correct time and are
recorded at the data system for future reference (Www1.health.gov.au., 2019). The next aim
is to reduce the prevalence of the disease among the individuals who are native to Australia.
This will help to reduce the transmission within Australia. Another goal of the work plan is
the reduction of the difference rate among the native and the refugees in Australia. It will
help the refugees and the health care team to enhance the program for the reduction of the
burden of the disease (Bharmal et al., 2015).
The SMART goals and objectives for the control of the disease are stated below
S Specific Reduction of prevalence of TB
among Australian refugees
M Measureable To determine the rate of
reduction of TB
A Acceptable To involve the refugees and the
healthcare staff to work on the
health promotion program
R Realistic To conduct the health
promotion program at different
places in order to involve large
amount of refugees
T Time-bound The program will be conducted
for 1 year at different places
around Australia.
As the health promotion is aimed to reduce the burden of TB among the refugees it is
important that the refuges have proper knowledge about the disease, thus, the first
intervention for that will be to conduct the health education classes for them at different
places round the year (Ayton et al., 2016). This will help them to stay up-to-date with the
recent advances in the schemes that have been designed by the government in order to help
them. The second intervention will include the screening of the refugees for the presence of

3HEALTH PROMOTION
the bacteria or to know any another symptom of the disease (Masters et al., 2018). This will
help to easily identify the risk groups and to separate them from the remaining population
that will reduce the chances of the spread of the disease. The last intervention will be the
supply of various medicines that are needed for the control of the medicines. This is required
as the refugees are not able to complete the course of medication due to poor economical
status (Neiger et al., 2012).
Doctors have been listed as the number one source of reliable health care data by
community members. But training sessions and participants in healthcare workers showed a
doubt about the capacity of general practice to provide testing and treatment. The other
stakeholders include the nurses and the allied healthcare professionals (Denholm, McBryde &
Brown, 2012). These populations are affected by the health promotion program as they have
the responsibility to reduce the risk of the disease. These stakeholders will emphasize on the
fact that the refugees d not have the sufficient knowledge regarding the disease and thus, it is
very important to promote health literacy among them (Schell et al., 2013). Thus, in order to
achieve the goals and objectives of the health promotion program the healthcare professionals
will focus on the spread of the awareness among the refugees.
Implementation
The health promoters need to plan for the various ways that will help them to achieve
their goal. This will include the methods to teach the refugees, the ways to make them
understand the importance of hygiene, medication and healthy food (Golden & Earp, 2012).
In order to accomplish all of this the health promoters need to consider their language, belief
and culture. They also need to address their social, economic, political, environmental
problems. Thus, the healthcare staffs needs to have an upstream approach for the completion
of the program (Lupton, 2012).