PUBD102 - Foundations of Health Promotion

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Nil

Incompatible

PUBH102 Foundations of Health Promotion

Unit rationale, description and aim

Health promotion creates supportive conditions for health, enabling people to have control over, and improve their health and wellbeing. Health promotion officers need to have a good understanding of health promotion approaches and behaviour change models in order to engage community and enable people to address their own health needs and issues. This unit helps students to obtain fundamental knowledge and understanding of health promotion concepts and issues. It provides an introduction to the principles and practices of health promotion, with an emphasis on the factors that determine health and health inequities, including economic, social and environmental influences. Key health issues and strategies for addressing health risk behaviours and optimising the health of populations are explored. Where appropriate, students will develop an awareness of the impact of colonisation on indigenous health and the implications for health promotion planning and practice. The aim of this unit is to support students to be able to plan, carry out and assess health promotion activities in different settings and apply this knowledge in developing health promotion campaigns.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - explain how health promotion principles are applied in planning and practice (GA5)

LO2 - analyse the range of factors that influence the health of individuals and populations, including social determinants of health and lifestyle behaviours (GA2, GA4, GA5)

LO3 - advocate for approaches to prevent disease and promote health (GA5, GA8, GA9)

LO4 - design a health promotion strategy that applies key principles and theoretical models of health promotion (GA6, GA7, GA8, GA9).

Graduate attributes

GA2 - recognise their responsibility to the common good, the environment and society 

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA6 - solve problems in a variety of settings taking local and international perspectives into account

GA7 - work both autonomously and collaboratively 

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

GA9 - demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media 

Content

Topics will include:

• Health promotion from historical perspective
• Determinants of health
• Inequity and disparities in health
• Emerging issues in health promotion
• Theoretical models in health promotion: the Ottawa Charter in Action
• Health education and behaviour change
• Settings for health promotion
• Community engagement for effective health promotion
• Health promotion with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
• The environment and health promotion
• Globalisation in relation to health promotion.

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

This unit is offered in multi-mode to ensure high quality interactive and constructive peer learning. This unit comprises weekly tutorial preparation activities, followed by interactive tutorials using student-centred teaching and active learning approach to support students in the exploration of health promotion principles and practices. The unit uses recorded material, readings and interactive activities to teach essential theory and concepts via ACU'S Learning Environment Online (LEO). This learning is then reinforced through facilitated tutorial activities that support students to synthesise knowledge and develop a deep understanding of how to identify health determinants and plan, implement and evaluate health promotion initiatives.

Further to this, to ensure students are ready to transition from the Diploma and articulate into the second year of undergraduate study, transition pedagogies will be incorporated into the unit as the key point of differentiation from the standard unit. This focuses on an active and engaging approach to learning and teaching practices, and a scaffolded approach to the delivery of curriculum to enhance student learning in a supportive environment. This will ensure that students develop foundation level discipline-based knowledge, skills and attributes, and simultaneously the academic competencies required of students to succeed in this unit.

Assessment strategy and rationale

A range of assessment procedures will be used to meet the unit learning outcomes and develop graduate attributes consistent with University assessment requirements. In order to successfully complete this unit, students need to complete and submit three graded assessment tasks. In addition to this, students must obtain an aggregate mark of greater than 50% over these three assessment tasks. 

Assessment in this unit will comprise two assignments and an end of semester written exam. The assessment strategy allows students to progressively develop their knowledge and skills to the level of sophistication where they can apply key health promotion principles to the analysis and development of health promotion strategies. The assessment strategy commences with Assessment 1, a task that requires students to advocate for a health promotion intervention that addresses health risk factors. For Assessment, they will extend and synthesise their understanding through development of an evidence-based health promotion intervention, working in groups. Assessment for this unit will conclude with an end of semester exam that assessed understanding and application of knowledge gained in this unit.

Strategies aligned with transition pedagogies will be utilised to facilitate successful completion of the unit assessment tasks. For each assessment, there will be the incorporation of developmentally staged tasks with a focus on a progressive approach to learning. This will be achieved through activities, including regular feedback, particularly early in the unit of study to support their learning; strategies to develop and understand discipline-specific concepts and terminology; in-class practice tasks with integrated feedback; and greater peer-to-peer collaboration.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Baum, F. (2015). The New Public Health. An Australian Perspective. (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Green, J., Tones, K., Cross, R. & Woodall, J. (2015) Health Promotion: planning and strategies. (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications.

Keleher, H. & MacDougall, C. (Eds) (2016). Understanding Health: a determinants approach (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Marmot, M., Wilkinson, R. G. (2006). Social Determinants of Health. (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.