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BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2015

Open Access 01-12-2015 | Research article

Strengths and limitations of a tool for monitoring and evaluating First Peoples’ health promotion from an ecological perspective

Authors: Kevin Rowley, Joyce Doyle, Leah Johnston, Rachel Reilly, Leisa McCarthy, Mayatili Marika, Therese Riley, Petah Atkinson, Bradley Firebrace, Julie Calleja, Margaret Cargo

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2015

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Abstract

Background

An ecological approach to health and health promotion targets individuals and the environmental determinants of their health as a means of more effectively influencing health outcomes. The approach has potential value as a means to more accurately capture the holistic nature of Australian First Peoples’ health programs and the way in which they seek to influence environmental, including social, determinants of health.

Methods

We report several case studies of applying an ecological approach to health program evaluation using a tool developed for application to mainstream public health programs in North America – Richard’s ecological coding procedure.

Results

We find the ecological approach in general, and the Richard procedure specifically, to have potential for broader use as an approach to reporting and evaluation of health promotion programs. However, our experience applying this tool in academic and community-based program evaluation contexts, conducted in collaboration with First Peoples of Australia, suggests that it would benefit from cultural adaptations that would bring the ecological coding procedure in greater alignment with the worldviews of First Peoples and better identify the aims and strategies of local health promotion programs.

Conclusions

Establishing the cultural validity of the ecological coding procedure is necessary to adequately capture the underlying program activities of community-based health promotion programs designed to benefit First Peoples, and its collaborative implementation with First Peoples supports a human rights approach to health program evaluation.
Footnotes
1
The ‘community’ level was added by Richard and colleagues in order to more accurately capture the targets of local-area health promotion activities.
 
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Metadata
Title
Strengths and limitations of a tool for monitoring and evaluating First Peoples’ health promotion from an ecological perspective
Authors
Kevin Rowley
Joyce Doyle
Leah Johnston
Rachel Reilly
Leisa McCarthy
Mayatili Marika
Therese Riley
Petah Atkinson
Bradley Firebrace
Julie Calleja
Margaret Cargo
Publication date
01-12-2015
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2015
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2550-3

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