Reflection on Public Health Principles and Practice

This reflection covers modules 5-12 of the Public Health Program and discusses challenges for the practice of public health for drug abuse, health behaviors for Indigenous Australians, strategies to improve cultural competence among health professionals, and the utilization of digital health in different countries.

Assessment 1PUBH6000Template
Assessment 1 Reflection 2: Reflection on public health principles and practice
Reflection 2: Covering Module 5-12
Please reflect on your understanding of the topics covering module5-12.
You are required to write within 200 words per question. Please read the Assessment 1 brief before
developing your assessment.
You are required to support your ideas by providing at least 2 credible references for each topic.
The APA referencing system is required for in-text citation and reference list. Please compile all your
references outside the table.
Reflection of your understanding/perspective on the given topics below
Module 5 - 6
Explain any one challenge for the practice of public health for drug abuse. Proposed a recommendation to
address that challenge.
Ans: Out of some major challenges, common one is addressing and dealing with stress and trauma without using
abusive substances like alcohol and drugs. Many people believe it easy to adopt for alcohol and drugs to deal with the
traumatic and shameful situations in life (Peacock et. al., 2019). While many people get addicted to such substances
even after passing the situation. In rehabilitation centres, people have to deal with all situations without the aid of such
addictive and harmful substances. The situation get very challenging to them as it requires a lot of strength, effort,
strong mindset, time, and bravery to deal and confront such issues head-on and try to address the issue on their own
with full consciousness. When working with therapists and counsellors in rehabilitation centre, people with addiction
get many chances to deal with such situations bravely with their guidance. Professionals always tends to provide their
full support and help people to overcome the situations. They should be recommended to follow the guidance provided
by therapists and counsellors in order to learn to deal with shameful and stressful conditions calmly and try to make a
positive mindset and keep moving forward and promote self growth (Dunlop et. al., 2020).
Module 7- 8
Identify any two health behaviours for Indigenous Australians that cause negative health outcomes among
them. Critically explain two potential factors that may influence those behaviours
Ans: Biomedical risks and dietary behaviours are two health behaviours that cause negative health outcomes to
Indigenous Australians. Two factors that influence this negative health outcomes are: Smoking and alcohol
consumption & Health inactivity. Indigenous population marked to be significantly higher in habit of smoking and
drinking alcohol (Taylor & Guerin, 2019). Indigenous population already lack on accessing good and nutritional diet
which reported to be badly influence their health, including coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. A survey has
showed that children's population of 85% in indigenous group aged between 2-14 and 97% of indigenous adults are
unable to access daily fruit or vegetable intake. Henceforth; they have no access to effective medical facilities also pose
specific and direct risks to their health. A survey report from 2012-2013 revealed the prevalence of high blood pressure
and obesity among indigenous people. Physical inactivity is a factor that cannot be ignored while discussing risk factors
and associated bad behaviours that influence negative health outcome among people. Indigenous Australians reported to
be physically inactive.
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Module 9 -10
Cultural competence is important for the promotion of good health outcomes among culturally and
linguistically diverse population in Australia. Proposed one strategy that can help develop and improve
cultural competence among health professionals.
Ans: Strategy that may help to improve cultural competence among healthcare system is to incorporate and follow
culture-specific practices among health professionals. In Australia; diversity in population follow different traditional
practices and have different languages and especially, Indigenous population is supposed to be more specific and
sensitive about their traditional and cultural practices (Khan et. al., 2021). They do not compromise with their cultural
practices in any way. So it is important for professionals to understand and learn more about their culture and provide
them medical treatment and facilities within their traditional boundaries. So they are able to access the treatment
procedure and avail the facilities to get better health outcomes. Language and communication barrier reported to
contributing the most in creating barrier in providing quality care to the patients. It leads to poor comprehension and
adherence, patient dissatisfaction, and lower quality of care. It is important to have interpreters in medical and
healthcare services to establish better communication between health service user and healthcare providers (Jongen,
McCalman & Bainbridge, 2018).
Module 11-12
Compare the utilisation of digital health in your home country and that of Australia or any two countries of
your interest (that you think they are different).
Ans: Digital healthcare companies and manufacturing are flourishing at an great extent worldwide. India and Australia
are of them. Many health technologies and developing innovations are contributing in changing the landscape of
healthcare system in India. These technologies may include; Virtual reality, telemedicine, artificial intelligence,
wearable tech, genomics, robotics , etc. Australian government has implemented The National Digital Health Strategy
to succeed the proposal of providing digital health services to people within country. Digital health has a broad scope in
India which includes; mobile health and applications which access the information related to public health via SMS,
Medicare online, and wellness apps (Taylor,2021). Major difference between Indian and Australian healthcare system is
that the India has a focus on an program and tends to ambitiously working on program without taking data protection
laws in consideration whereas Australia looking forward to create strategies on advancing digital health ecosystem
along with supporting far-sighted data privacy laws.
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References (for all topics)
Dunlop, A., Lokuge, B., Masters, D., Sequeira, M., Saul, P., Dunlop, G., Ryan, J., Hall, M., Ezard, N., Haber, P. and
Lintzeris, N., 2020. Challenges in maintaining treatment services for people who use drugs during the COVID-
19 pandemic. Harm reduction journal, 17(1), pp.1-7.
Jongen, C., McCalman, J. and Bainbridge, R., 2018. Health workforce cultural competency interventions: a systematic
scoping review. BMC health services research, 18(1), pp.1-15.
Khan, S., Bettiol, S., Kent, K., Peres, M.A., Barnett, T., Crocombe, L.A. and Mittinty, M., 2021. Association between
obesity and periodontitis in Australian adults: A single mediation analysis. Journal of Periodontology, 92(4),
pp.514-523.
Peacock, A., Bruno, R., Gisev, N., Degenhardt, L., Hall, W., Sedefov, R., White, J., Thomas, K.V., Farrell, M. and
Griffiths, P., 2019. New psychoactive substances: challenges for drug surveillance, control, and public health
responses. The Lancet, 394(10209), pp.1668-1684.
Taylor, A., 2021. Healthcare in Australia and Brazil. In Healthcare Technology in Context (pp. 65-79). Palgrave
Macmillan, Singapore.
Taylor, K. and Guerin, P.T., 2019. Health care and Indigenous Australians: cultural safety in practice. Bloomsbury
Publishing.
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