PUBH 2007 Needs Assessment: Socioeconomic Factors and Overweight Males

This report presents a needs assessment focusing on overweight males in South Australia, conducted within the context of a health promotion initiative targeting Type 2 diabetes in the local government area of Playford. The report examines the relationship between socioeconomic status and the prevalence of overweight males, utilizing data from the Public Health Information Development Unit (PHIDU). The analysis reveals a trend where higher socioeconomic groups exhibit a higher occurrence of overweight, contrasting with some international findings. Social determinants like education, employment, and income are discussed as influential factors. The report highlights the importance of understanding these socioeconomic factors to address the issue of overweight in South Australia effectively, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions and public health strategies. The assignment is based on a hypothetical scenario where the author works as a Research Officer in Adelaide.

Running head: OVERWEIGHT MALE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
OVERWEIGHT MALE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

1OVERWEIGHT MALE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
The word ‘Overweight’ can be used in two different meaning. One is in the layman
term which is an imperfect way of saying that someone is heavy. Another is a more precise
way in which overweight signifies a state which is in between the normal weight and obese
state. Commonly, in scientific and medical sector overweight is determined in terms Body
Mass Index or BMI. Body Mass Index is generally measured by dividing an individual’s
weight in Kg by that individual’s height in meters. Body Mass Index or BMI generally
signifies the total fat content of an individual’s body. In case of male, a Body Mass Index or
BMI higher than 27.8 is generally considers as overweight (Abarca-Gómez et al., 2017).
According to the Australian government’s statistics it has been reported that the
region of South Australia is one of the fattest region among all of Australia (NewsComAu,
2019). It has also reported the fact that South Australia has one of the largest proportion of
overweight Australians amongst them. According to the Australian Institute of Health and
Welfare, the maximum overweight people are reside in the area of the outside the cities and
these people are much more prone to smoking compared to the people living in the cities
(NewsComAu, 2019). Various studies have reported the fact that there is a significant link
between overweight and socio- economic status of an individual. Hence, in this article, the
state of the overweight male in South Australia will be discussed in the light of their socio
economic status (Mihrshahi et al., 2018). The socio economic status data was retrieved from
the Public Health Information Development Unit (PHIDU) official website
(Phidu.torrens.edu.au, 2019).
The socio economic data with regard to overweight male was retrieved from the
PHIDU website and presented in the Figure 1 below. From the Figure 1, it can be seen that
the number of participants were divided in to five quintile based on their socio economic
status (X axis). In the figure, the socio economic status was presented on basis of higher to
lower socio economic status. Therefore, number one denotes the highest socio economic

2OVERWEIGHT MALE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
status while number five denotes the lowest socio economic status. The socio economic data
were corresponds with the rate of overweight male per 100. Anyone who was above the age
of 18 years old was considered as an adult male (Phidu.torrens.edu.au, 2019).
Figure 1: Socio economic status with regard to rate of overweight male per 100 in South
Australia (Source: Phidu.torrens.edu.au, 2019).
This was presented in the Y Axis. From the data presented in the Figure 1, a
downward trend can be observed from the highest socio economic group to lowest socio
economic with exception in the 4th lowest socio economic group. The trend is that the
occurrence of overweight per 100 male is highest in the highest socio economic group with a
value of 49.4 and it is lowest in the lowest socio economic group with a value of 39.9. The
declining trend has been observed for all the four socio economic group with the exception of
the quintile number four. Thus, we can assume that the value presented in the quintile number
4 is just an aberration of the trend and not the actual trend (Phidu.torrens.edu.au, 2019).
Hence, it can be assumed that the occurrence of the overweight male is higher in higher
socio- economic group. This assumption is also backed up by the inequality ratio which can

3OVERWEIGHT MALE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
be derived from the graph. The inequality ratio between highest socio economic groups
(quintile number 1) to lowest socio economic group (quintile number 5) is 0.81
(Phidu.torrens.edu.au, 2019).
It has been reported that the South Australia ranks in three with regard to socio
economical disadvantages while comparing with the rest of the Australia. Education is one of
the social determinants and education level in South Australia is below the national average
of the Australia. It has also been reported that the gap in education level is higher in the least
advantage socio economic groups. Therefore, it can be correlated that the education plays a
role with regard to the occurrence of overweight people. From the data, it can be deducted
that the higher educated people have a higher tendency to get overweight. Interestingly, this
is directly in contrast with a report published by the World Health Organisation or WHO
(Euro.who.int, 2019). The data published by World Health Organisation or WHO reported
that the less educated people have a higher tendency to get overweight (Euro.who.int, 2019).
In case of South Australia, the trend regarding employment and income shows the
same trend as education level portrayed above. Obviously, employment and income is lower
in the lowest socio economic group in comparison with the highest socio economic group
(Phidu.torrens.edu.au, 2019). Hence, it can be deduced from this two information that the
people with lower income or lack of employment get tend to overweight lesser than the
people belonging to the highest socio economic group. The reason behind this might be that
people with higher income has the privilege of buying enough food for their family which
tends to make them overweight in comparison with the people living in lower socio economic
group (Phidu.torrens.edu.au, 2019).
From the above discussion, it can be said that the region of South Australia is facing a
problem of overweight compared to the rest of the Australia. From the data presented in the

4OVERWEIGHT MALE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
above sections, it can be said that the people with higher socio economic advantages has the
highest tendency to get overweight compared to the people belonging in the lower socio
economic group and social determinants like education, employment and income plays a
huge role in the scenario.

5OVERWEIGHT MALE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
References:
Abarca-Gómez, L., Abdeen, Z. A., Hamid, Z. A., Abu-Rmeileh, N. M., Acosta-Cazares, B.,
Acuin, C., ... & Agyemang, C. (2017). Worldwide trends in body-mass index,
underweight, overweight, and obesity from 1975 to 2016: a pooled analysis of 2416
population-based measurement studies in 128· 9 million children, adolescents, and
adults. The Lancet, 390(10113), 2627-2642.
Euro.who.int. (2019). Retrieved from
http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/247638/obesity-090514.pdf
Mihrshahi, S., Drayton, B. A., Bauman, A. E., & Hardy, L. L. (2018). Associations between
childhood overweight, obesity, abdominal obesity and obesogenic behaviors and
practices in Australian homes. BMC public health, 18(1), 44.
NewsComAu. (2019). Australia’s fattest states revealed. Retrieved from
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/obesity-snapshot-south-
australia-is-the-nations-fattest-state/news-story/8b83432ee55b12138739d600a5707dff
Phidu.torrens.edu.au. (2019). Binding to remote data. Retrieved from
http://www.phidu.torrens.edu.au/current/graphs/sha-aust/quintiles/sa/avoidable-
mortality-sex.html