NUR121: Health, Culture, Society - Bowel Cancer Program Evaluation

This assignment, focusing on NUR121: Health, Culture, and Society, examines bowel cancer as a health priority within the Australian healthcare system. It explores a health promotion program addressing bowel cancer, detailing its key features and strategies. The assignment critically assesses the program's alignment with primary healthcare principles, evaluating its community engagement, equitable service distribution, and use of appropriate technology. Furthermore, it analyzes the health promotion strategies employed, such as community funding, research support, and awareness campaigns, while applying the principles of health promotion. Finally, the assignment proposes recommendations for program improvement to better meet the needs of the target group, emphasizing the importance of creating a supportive environment. The analysis is supported by various academic references, providing a comprehensive overview of the topic.

NUR121 health, Culture and Society Task 3: Workbook 40%
Name the health issue: Bowel cancer
1. Why is the issue a priority for the Australian healthcare industry? (100
words)
Cancer is among the five priority areas that the Australian healthcare
system targets as it focuses on the health of Australians. Cancer is
preventable (by maintaining a healthy lifestyle like avoiding alcohol) and
treatable as well. Cancer is currently placing the largest and growing
burden on patients, families and the Australian healthcare system at
large. Cancer has a prevalence of over 100 000 new cases registered
every year in Australia. Because of the burden posed by cancer on the
Australian community it was announced as a National Health Priority Area
NHPA in 1996. NHPA focuses on 8 priority cancers and colorectal cancer
or bowel cancer is among them.
References; (Duckett & Willcox, 2015; Pettigrew et al., 2014, p. 786;
Jensen, 2018, pp.27-46);
Haigh, M., Burns, J., Potter, C., Elwell, M., Hollows, M., Mundy, J., Taylor, E.
and Thompson, S., 2018. Review of cancer among Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people. Australian Indigenous HealthBulletin, 18(3).
2. Describe the health promotion program and discuss the key features
that are used to address the health issue? (400 words).
Health promotion program aim at empowering and promoting individuals
and community in choosing healthy lifestyle behaviors and making
adjustments and changes that may end up reducing risks of developing
chronic diseases and other morbidities. Health promotion programs
mainly focus on keeping people healthy. World Health Organization
defines Health Promotion Programs as "The process of enabling people to
increase control over, and to improve, their health. It moves beyond a
focus on individual behavior towards a wide range of social and
environmental interventions.” Health promotion programs often address
social determinants of health and influence risk behaviors that can be
modified. The social determinants of health include social, cultural,
economic and political conditions in which people are born, grow and live
that affects their health status. The modifiable behaviors include quitting
smoking and alcohol consumption, poor eating habits accompanied by
lack of physical activities that contribute to the development of chronic
conditions and diseases. The typical activities involved in health
promotion programs include communication, education, and policy,
system and environmental changes. these are summarized by the World
Health Organization into three elements of which include good
governance for health, health literacy, and healthy cities. Starting with
the good governance, Australia has the Cancer Australia Act 2006, which
has its vision as reducing the impact of cancer and improving the well
being of those affected by cancer. This act was developed by the
Australian government with the aim of benefitting the patients suffering
from cancer and their families at large. The main role of Cancer
Australia's leadership in health promotion program is to shape the cancer
control agenda, define best practices in cancer care and to guide
investment in cancer management. Doing so it is evidently seen that the

Australian government is making health a central line of its policy. They,
therefore, prioritize policies that prevent Australians from suffering from
cancer. Their policies are supported by regulations that match private
sector incentives with public health goals. For example, aligning tax on
harmful products such as tobacco and alcohol that can increase the rate
of colorectal cancer. Health promotion allows people to acquire the
knowledge, skills and the information they require to make healthy
choices. Such as choosing foods that are healthy and won’t put people
into high risk of chronic diseases.
References
Baugh Littlejohns, L., Baum, F., Lawless, A. and Freeman, T., 2019.
Disappearing health system building blocks in the health promotion
policy context in South Australia (2003–2013). Critical Public
Health, 29(2), pp.228-240.
Marmot, M., Allen, J., Bell, R., Bloomer, E. and Goldblatt, P., 2012. WHO
European review of social determinants of health and the health
divide. The lancet, 380(9846), pp.1011-1029.
3. How does the program demonstrate the principles of primary
healthcare? (400 words)
The engagement of the community and its members in the program
activities. The purpose of the program is to sustain the communities and
this helps in making sure that the national and local resources are well
utilized. The services of this program are distributed well or equitably
without considering the gender, age, the physical location of the people
they are served to. This is to ensure that all the community problems are
met and solved. The use of appropriate technology is advocated to
ensure it provides services that are accepted culturally by the
community. The members of the community should be able to afford the
technology financially and they should physically access the services
whenever they need them. The technology should also conform to the
norms of the community. It should also be friendly in that the community
members themselves can be trained on how to use it after the program
pioneers have gone. For effective service delivery, the program cannot
work on its own or work with a single department hence recognition to
work with other sectors of health like the agricultural sector in the
provision of proper nutrition, sector of sanitation in ensuring the
community receives clean water for use. Partnership with the
government can also be created to ensure rural development in relation
to industries and even infrastructure. Before introducing a program in the
community, one should study the community first to ensure that the
program does not violate or cause harm to their way of doing things. The
members must always accept the program to also win their trust and
ensure they fully participate in achieving the program objectives. The
program should also be able to increase awareness of health among the
community members and help them be in control of their own health so
as to improve their health. This can be achieved through the creation of
education programs in the community to empower their actions towards
their own health.
References
Wakerman, J., Humphreys, J., Wells, R., Kuipers, P., Entwistle, P., & Jones,

J. (2017). A systematic review of primary health care delivery models in
rural and remote Australia 1993-2006.
Braun, R., Catalani, C., Wimbush, J. and Israelski, D., 2013. Community
health workers and mobile technology: a systematic review of the
literature. PloS one, 8(6), p.e65772.
Sharma, M., 2016. Theoretical foundations of health education and health
promotion. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Epstein, J.L., Sanders, M.G., Sheldon, S.B., Simon, B.S., Salinas, K.C.,
Jansorn, N.R., Van Voorhis, F.L., Martin, C.S., Thomas, B.G., Greenfeld,
M.D. and Hutchins, D.J., 2018. School, family, and community
partnerships: Your handbook for action. Corwin Press.
4. What health promotion strategies are used by the program and
how are the principles of health promotion applied in their strategies?
(400 words)
Health promotion strategies are individual and social actions designed to
gain the commitment of the political leadership, policy support from the
policies made, acceptance socially and to gain support from the
healthcare system at large for a particular health goal or program.
Cancer Australia has therefore developed some health promotion
strategies to help curb Cancer in the nation. The strategies include
community funding. It raises funds in different ways to continue saving
lives. The ways of raising funds include online fundraising, community
fundraising, workplace and matched giving where the workers donate as
they earn to save lives. There is also company fundraising corporate
partnerships and many more. The next strategy that Bowel Cancer
Australia do is to fund research. Research is funded because through
research is when we get the cure and treatment and ways of preventing
bowel cancer. To help address the inequity in research funding, Bowel
Cancer Australia established the Bowel Cancer Research Foundation. This
foundation is funded to conduct research on bowel cancer and ways of
prevention as it has already been mentioned. Another strategy is that the
Bowel cancer Australia campaigns of quality treatment to prevent cancer
from spreading the surrounding organs. Despite the fact that chances of
survival for someone diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer are
minimal, (approximately 1 out of 10), high-quality care and effective
treatment with time have been found to significantly increase the
patient's quality of life and well being. The Bowel Cancer Australia's
Campaign, therefore, is for the patients diagnosed with cancer get quality
care and treatment to ensure that more people live beyond bowel
cancer. The next strategy is support, care, and recovery; in this, it
ensures that it is providing practical and emotional support for the
Australians affected by Bowel cancer. It also builds communities by
sharing experiences and creating a voice of change that is powerful.
Awareness; this strategy requires the program to conduct dynamic
campaigns that raise awareness to the public and motivate action to be
taken towards the prevention of Colorectal cancer. The last strategy is
Prevention and early detection. In this, health knowledge and
understanding are increased. And by making real change happen,

practical information and programs for prevention and early detection of
cancer are provided.
References
Eldredge, L.K.B., Markham, C.M., Ruiter, R.A., Kok, G., Fernandez, M.E. and
Parcel, G.S., 2016. Planning health promotion programs: an intervention
mapping approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Sarfati, D., Koczwara, B., & Jackson, C. (2016). The impact of comorbidity
on cancer and its treatment. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, 66(4),
337-350.
Shih, Y.C.T., Ganz, P.A., Aberle, D., Abernethy, A., Bekelman, J., Brawley,
O., Goodwin, J.S., Hu, J.C., Schrag, D., Temel, J.S. and Schnipper, L., 2013.
Delivering high-quality and affordable care throughout the cancer care
continuum. Journal of clinical Oncology, 31(32), p.4151.
5. How can the program be improved to better meet the needs of
their target group? (200 words). Provide one recommendation and
support it with a reference
Creating a supportive environment for the members of the group where
healthy choices are made. This can be done in many different ways. One
can use the hospital set up to create a supportive environment like have
friendly staff members to welcome patients when they come to the
health facility, you can also make the waiting areas friendly by even
making water accessible by the patients in case they need. Including the
community members in the plans of their wellbeing by consulting them.
Enabling the community members to take charge of their health and the
environment like providing education programs to the members of the
community that are disadvantaged maybe by being far from the health
facility. There should be policies on smoking and tobacco use in the
community to ensure that the environment people live in is safe and
clean. Providing the community with incentives in relation to finances like
to sponsor programs like drug and substance abuse like alcohol. This will
help in creating environments that support good behaviors and the
promotion of health that is good among the community members.
References
Billett, Stephen. "Learning through health care work: premises,
contributions, and practices." Medical education 50.1 (2016): 124-131.
Hart, R.A., 2013. Children's participation: The theory and practice of
involving young citizens in community development and environmental
care. Routledge.
Eldredge, L.K.B., Markham, C.M., Ruiter, R.A., Kok, G., Fernandez, M.E.
and Parcel, G.S., 2016. Planning health promotion programs: an
intervention mapping approach. John Wiley & Sons.

References:
Baugh Littlejohns, L., Baum, F., Lawless, A. and Freeman, T., 2019. Disappearing health
system building blocks in the health promotion policy context in South Australia (2003–
2013). Critical Public Health, 29(2), pp.228-240.
Braun, R., Catalani, C., Wimbush, J. and Israelski, D., 2013. Community health workers and
mobile technology: a systematic review of the literature. PloS one, 8(6), p.e65772.
Duckett, S. and Willcox, S., 2015. The Australian health care system (No. Ed. 5). Oxford
University Press.
Eldredge, L.K.B., Markham, C.M., Ruiter, R.A., Kok, G., Fernandez, M.E. and Parcel, G.S.,
2016. Planning health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach. John Wiley &
Sons.
Epstein, J.L., Sanders, M.G., Sheldon, S.B., Simon, B.S., Salinas, K.C., Jansorn, N.R., Van
Voorhis, F.L., Martin, C.S., Thomas, B.G., Greenfeld, M.D. and Hutchins, D.J., 2018. School,
family, and community partnerships: Your handbook for action. Corwin Press
Haigh, M., Burns, J., Potter, C., Elwell, M., Hollows, M., Mundy, J., Taylor, E. and Thompson,
S., 2018. Review of cancer among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Australian
Indigenous HealthBulletin, 18(3).
Hart, R.A., 2013. Children's participation: The theory and practice of involving young citizens
in community development and environmental care. Routledge.
Jensen, O.M., 2018. The epidemiology of large bowel cancer. In Diet, nutrition, and cancer: a
critical evaluation (pp. 27-46). CRC Press.
Marmot, M., Allen, J., Bell, R., Bloomer, E. and Goldblatt, P., 2012. WHO European review of
social determinants of health and the health divide. The lancet, 380(9846), pp.1011-1029.
Pettigrew, S., Jongenelis, M., Chikritzhs, T., Slevin, T., Pratt, I.S., Glance, D. and Liang, W.,
2014. Developing cancer warning statements for alcoholic beverages. BMC public
health, 14(1), p.786.
Sarfati, D., Koczwara, B., & Jackson, C. (2016). The impact of comorbidity on cancer and its
treatment. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, 66(4), 337-350.
Sharma, M., 2016. Theoretical foundations of health education and health promotion. Jones &
Bartlett Publishers.
Shih, Y.C.T., Ganz, P.A., Aberle, D., Abernethy, A., Bekelman, J., Brawley, O., Goodwin, J.S.,
Hu, J.C., Schrag, D., Temel, J.S. and Schnipper, L., 2013. Delivering high-quality and
affordable care throughout the cancer care continuum. Journal of clinical Oncology, 31(32),
p.4151.