Public Health Promotion Project Plan: Youth Health Issues

This report presents a comprehensive public health promotion project plan designed to address the critical health issues of obesity, suicide, and alcohol consumption among teenagers and young adults from middle to upper-middle-class families. The project, aligned with the World Health Organization's definition of health, aims to educate the target group on risk factors and implement primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention strategies. It includes detailed outlines of the target group, health promotion aims, and the perspectives of primary, secondary and tertiary health promotion strategies. The plan incorporates a strategic prevention framework, involving stakeholders such as teachers, community-based nursing professionals, and policy planners, while also incorporating educational documentaries, motivational speakers, and interactive sessions. The evaluation of the project involves a computer-based survey and analysis of baseline data to assess the program's effectiveness in reducing obesity, alcohol consumption, and suicidal tendencies. The project emphasizes the need for community-based changes and social innovations, offering a structured approach to improve the overall health and well-being of the targeted youth population.

Running head: HEALTHCARE
Public Health Promotion Project
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
According to the definition of World Health Organization (WHO) (2011), health can
be defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the
absence of the disease or other infirmity. Thus health is beyond the description of the disease
occurrence and has been a significant statement contributing to the current thinking pattern of
the public health. The Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) (2019) defines public
health as a multidisciplinary set of activities that aims towards protecting and promoting
health while preventing the chances of illness development. Health promotion program helps
in improving overall health and well-being of human group. The following health promotion
project will focus on the teenagers and young adults of school age who hails from middle or
upper middle class family and the chosen health issues include suicide, obesity and alcohol
use. The health promotion project plan will focus on education on risk factors to obesity,
alcohol use and suicide among the chosen target group. The implementation of this proposed
health promotion program will help in improving the overall health and well-being of the
teenage and the young adult population.
Health Promotion and Target Group Outline
The main target group of this health promotion program include the youth and the
teenagers who are school students and are form middle and upper class family. According to
the health National Health Survey published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, two-thirds
(67.0%) of the Australian adults are over-weight or suffers from obesity and this percentage
showed a significant increase in comparison to the previous year statistics (63.4% in 2014-
15). The survey also indicated that nearly 24.9% of the children who are aged between 5 to
17 years suffer from obesity (2017-18) of them 17% is over-weight and 8.1% obese
(Australian Government Department of Health, 2019). Kinchin and Doran (2018) stated that

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suicide is a leading cause of death among Australians who are 15 to 24 years old. In 2016,
nearly 2862 Australians died of suicide that is twice the value of transport aided accidental
death. The reason behind suicide is a complex outcome between the psychological, social and
biological factors. Due to high rate of suicide among the youth, Australia is experiencing high
rate of economic loss with an estimated amount of $20 to $25 billion. Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare (2019) stated that consumption of alcohol and tobacco is one of the
leading causes of preventable disease and illness among the Australian population. The youth
from the upper class families are more likely to become victims of the increased rate of
alcohol intoxication in comparison to the middle class youth or teenagers. Whereas teenage
from poor socio-economic determinants are victims of the over-weight and obesity issues.
According to Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2019), the behavior that
influence weight gain among the teenagers and the young adults include intake of high
calorie and low nutrient food, poor physical activity, sedentary lifestyle depression and stress.
In order to cope with stress and depression young adults or the teenagers become addicted to
alcohol, consumption of alcohol further promotes weight gain. When they are unable to cope
with the depressive symptoms, stress and anxiety or suffer from poor self-esteem leading to
suicide.
Health Promotion Aims
The aim of the health promotion program will be reduce the obesity, alcohol
consumption and rate of suicide among the young adults and teenagers from the upper and
middle class family. The main mode of the health-promotion program includes lack of
healthcare awareness among the youth or the teenagers about the consequences of obesity
and increased rate of alcohol consumption. According to CDC (2019), immediate health risks
of obesity and high rate of alcohol prevention include increased vulnerability of developing

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type 2 diabetes, risk of developing asthma, sleep apnea and musculoskeletal discomfort.
Other complications associated with obesity and alcohol use is high blood cholesterol level,
formation of gallstones and liver disease. Sahoo et al. (2015) are of the opinion that increase
level of healthcare awareness will help to reduce the poor health status of any target
population.
Health Promotion prevention management perspective (primary, secondary or tertiary)
Primary health promotion prevention aims to limit the incidence of illness and
disability among the target population. The main aim of primary perspective will focus on
educational awareness about cessation of alcohol intake (Steenkamer et al., 2017). This can
be done by educating about the harmful effects of alcohol intoxication along with mental
health counselling to educate about mental health outcomes, suicide and alcohol intake.
Secondary prevention aims to restrict the progression of the disease through eliminating the
factors that threatens the health or promoting the factors that promote health (Steenkamer et
al., 2017). Thus secondary health prevention will focus on raising awareness about healthy
diet and physical exercise for promoting weight loss. Tertiary prevention includes reduction
of the consequences of the established disease (Steenkamer et al., 2017). One of the
consequences of the established diseases as obesity and alcohol dependence is increased
tendency of suicide among the teenagers and the young adults. Thus, to reduce the suicidal
tendencies health awareness and the loss after death will be notified to these students. Overall
it can be said that have a strategic prevention framework (SPF) helps to act as a structured
guide for bringing the community change. The successful implementation of the SPF must be
done by bringing social innovations. Coalition process must be linked towards effective
creation of the community-based change (Peterson et al., 2019).

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Stakeholders and community consultation
The main stakeholder for this community-based health promotion intervention will include:
1. The teachers: It would be the duty of the teachers to arrange the motivational speaking
sessions with motivational speakers
2. Students (participants)
3. Community based nursing professionals: They will arrange the health education and
awareness program based on power-point presentation and poster presentation
4. School and college administrative authority who will provide the required funding for
the undertaking the overall programs like buying of the resources
5. The group of policy planners will also be involved as an important stakeholder. It
would be the duty of the group of the policy planner to undertaken the evaluation
program in order to ascertain the success of the program
Health Message/Logo
Live healthy, stay fit and say break the evil threats of alcohol and suicide
Health Promotion Activity Description
Wilcox and Wyman (2016) stated that school-based awareness programs have be
shown to reduce the suicidal attempts and suicidal ideation at a significant rate. The review
further reported that there are insufficient evidences in favour of possible benefits for suicide
prevention obtained through screening under the primary care unit (Zalsman et al., 2016).
The school-based awareness and educational programs for primary intervention will be
ideally implemented for the young adults and teenagers enter the period of risk for suicide or
alcohol abuse. Educational program will help in resilience and skill buildings. The school-

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based awareness program for the young adults and teenagers will involve weekly 10 to 15
minutes session of documentaries
First Week’s Documentary: The reasons for obesity and consequences
Second Week’s Documentary: The harmful effects of alcohol intoxication
Third Week’s Documentary: The suicidal attempts and its aftermath over the families and
peers
The documentaries based on the perspectives of the developed or developing world
will be showcases in during the recess hours in the school or in college. After the screening of
the documentaries, another 30 minutes of interactive session will occurs with the students and
the teachers. After the three consecutive weeks of documentary sessions, one influential
figure like celebrities or motivational speaker will be called in the school and in college to
motivate the students to indulge in the health lifestyle habits. The motivational speaker will
also elaborate stories of fighting against stress, depression and anxiety while staying away
from alcohol intoxication and suicidal attempts. This will be followed by a detailed education
program delivered by a community level-nursing professional stating the importance of
healthy diet and physical activity in obesity prevention followed by the education about the
harmful effects of obesity and alcohol. At end of the power-point presentation given by the
nurse, a leaflet will be distributed among all enlisting the summary of the overall
presentation. This will be followed by a poster presentation about healthy lifestyle habits and
the same poster will be kept in the main hall of the institution.
Documentary movie watching First three weeks (15 minutes)
Question and Answers Round 30 minutes after each movie
Motivational speaker 10 minutes in fourth week
Community based nurses health literacy program 15 minutes on fifth week through power-point

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presentation
Poster Presentation 10 minutes on the same day
The secondary intervention approaches will involve identification of the teenage and
the young adults who are vulnerable in getting affected with alcohol intoxication, obesity and
suicidal attempts followed by implementation of the desired interventions. The identification
of the vulnerable group of individuals who are prone towards suicidal attempts or are
vulnerable towards developing obesity and alcohol abuse will be done during the questions
and answers round. This group of individuals will be given special attention during the
motivational screening. Moreover, a separate group of information sheet will be prepared
from this group of individuals in order to guide them with the healthy diet plan that can be
used for obesity prevention along with the exercise routine. The exercise routine will be
based on weekly goals with aerobic and weight training exercise. The diet plan will focus on
cyclic menu in order to reduce the monotony. The vulnerable individuals who will be
identified through mental health counselling in order to educate them about the outcome of
the suicidal attempts and how to cope with such suicidal thoughts. Lived experience of the
people who have survived the suicidal attempts will be shared with them. The tertiary health
promotion program will involve preventing alcohol consumption among the teenage and the
young adults along with raising awareness about suicides. All the programs will be framed
within the institutional premises. One school and one college will be selected for the for the
implementation of the health promotion program.
For the educational approach, mainly young motivational speakers or the young adults
with lived experiences of fighting against obesity, alcohol intoxication and suicidal attempts
will be selected for taking part in this health promotion program.

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Health Promotion Evaluation Proposal
The health promotion evaluation proposal will be evaluated by conducting a survey
among the students who have taken part in the intervention programs. The survey will be
compute-based and will have questions addressing concerns like:
 How often you experience suicidal tendencies? Does tension provokes you from consuming alcohol? How often do you consume alcohol? Do you suffer from alcohol in-toxication?
 Do you follow physical activity and diet plan to maintain weight?
The analysis of the survey results will help in understanding the perspective of the
students upon health promotion. However, Harmon-Jones, Bastian and Harmon-Jones (2016)
are of the opinion that the self-reported questionnaire can be biased and might lead to false
positive or false negative results.
Additional evaluation methods must be undertaken in order to provide certain unbiased
results. For this baseline data reporting the absentees arising out of alcohol and obesity
related problems and consumption of the unhealthy food in the canteen will be collected
before the initiation of the health promotion intervention (baseline data) and this data will be
compared with data obtained after the implementation of the health intervention.
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that there is increased trend of
obesity, alcohol consumption and suicidal tendencies among the teenagers and young adults
of Australia. Such unhealthy lifestyle habits hamper the overall health and well-being the
youth of the society. In order to reduce such unhealthy lifestyle habits proper health

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promotional interventions have primary, secondary and tertiary aims must be implemented.
The process of implementation will be guided through education program and motivation
speaking programs that will be held within the school and college premises. The evaluation
program will be done based on survey and by comparing the healthy lifestyle interventions
with the baseline data with the data obtained after implementation of the intervention.

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References
Australian Government Department of Health (2019). Overweight and Obesity. Access date:
27th August 2019. Retrieved from:
https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/Overweight-and-
Obesity
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2019). Alcohol, tobacco & other drugs in
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https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/alcohol/alcohol-tobacco-other-drugs-australia/
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Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2019). Childhood Obesity Causes &
Consequences. Access date: 27th August 2019. Retrieved from:
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/causes.html
Harmon-Jones, C., Bastian, B., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2016). The discrete emotions
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Peterson, N. A., Powell, K. G., Treitler, P., Litterer, D., Borys, S., & Hallcom, D. (2019). The
strategic prevention framework in community-based coalitions: Internal processes and
associated changes in policies affecting adolescent substance abuse. Children and
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