Unit rationale, description and aim
Public Health advocacy involves individuals and organisations who operate locally, regionally, nationally and globally to address policies, products and practices that compromise people's health. Advocacy is a critical skill for all practitioners to effectively promote and protect population health and well being. Advocacy is often needed to transform research into policy and practice. This unit aims to enable students to refine their communication skills by building their knowledge of the I 'art of advocacy' and the various ways this can be used to influence decisions and outcomes to improve health. Students will examine various facets of advocacy, including: approaches to advocacy; persuasiveness, rhetoric, method, audience, presentation and evaluation; nested advocacy within larger approaches; challenging existing values or practices. Students will then consider the various factors that underpin effective, valid and appropriate advocacy, such as: community engagement, consultation and empowerment; community/organisational relationships; and respectful communication methods. In considering health advocacy in a global context, this unit will also include cultural responsiveness and cross-cultural communication. Finally, this unit will apply critical analysis to advocacy 'tools' (existing or emergent) such as social marketing, new media approaches, focused health campaigns, fundraising, celebrity advocacy and competitive advocacy in health.
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.
Demonstrate specialised knowledge of effective des...
Learning Outcome 01
Assess health issues and articulate appropriate pu...
Learning Outcome 02
Critically evaluate existing health advocacy strat...
Learning Outcome 03
Create an advocacy strategy designed to influence ...
Learning Outcome 04
Adapt health advocacy strategies for use with both...
Learning Outcome 05
Content
Health advocacy
- Definitions and key concepts applied to advocacy
- Roles, scope and levels of advocacy in health: patient advocate, public health advocate
- Other advocacy in health and community services: e.g. guardianship and administration systems
- Range of advocacy: single vs multiple issues, people, communities, countries
- Contextual factors: social, cultural, political, economic and other
- Importance of advocacy for global health and relationship to Sustainable Development Goals
Advocacy, community and culture
- Community consultation and consent
- Methods of community engagement, consultation
- Community controlled health campaigns; top-down vs bottom-up approaches
- Cultural responsiveness and advocacy, cross cultural advocacy
- Advocacy as paternalism; advocacy as empowerment
Advocacy method
- Advocacy approaches and issue appraisal
- Advocacy when challenging: influencing change in existing/entrenched values or practices in health
- Advocacy tools: persuasiveness and the art of rhetoric, presentation and refinement of issues
- Nested advocacy: place within larger campaigns or programs
- Communication strategies, audience considerations
- Evaluating impact of advocacy strategies
Applied advocacy in health
- Case studies of successful or unsuccessful advocacy in health
- New advocacy tools: social marketing, new media; combination with other approaches
- Advocacy landscape: large scale health campaigns and multi-pronged approaches
- Advocacy, advertising or lobbying: celebrity advocacy vs endorsement vs sponsorship; grass-roots vs astro-turf organizations
- Competitive advocacy in health: landscape of health issues, their campaigns and advocacy efforts
- Advocacy in relation to fundraising/philanthropic approaches
- Advocacy and audience: incorporating audience through new media; criticisms of effectiveness
Assessment strategy and rationale
Please note assessment is the same for students undertaking either multi-mode or online mode.
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 two graded assessment tasks and obtain an aggregate mark of greater than 50%.
PUBH643 assessments are designed to enable students to progressively develop their knowledge of health advocacy through first critique of existing strategies, and then through development of a health advocacy strategy for a contemporary health issue. In order to develop the knowledge and skills required to achieve the learning outcomes and Graduate Attributes, students first demonstrate their knowledge by preparing a critique of a health advocacy strategy with reference to global political priorities. Students then build on this analysis during the second assessment, where they are required to design a health advocacy strategy (including rationale, purpose, background and associated materials) on a contemporary health issue.
Overview of assessments
Assessment 1: Written assignment: Global health...
Assessment 1:
Written assignment: Global health advocacy and political priority
50%
Assessment 2: Written assignment: Health advocac...
Assessment 2:
Written assignment: Health advocacy strategy
50%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
PUBH643 is offered in both multi-mode and online mode.
Multi-mode
In multi-mode, this unit is delivered primarily via face-to-face sessions on campus (e.g. lectures, workshops, seminars). The unit uses an active learning approach where activities support students to acquire essential theoretical knowledge of health advocacy. Online content via Canvas also supports this acquisition. Seminars/workshops are designed to allow students the opportunity to apply lecture content to particular public health contexts and scenarios, and progressively develop higher level skills of effective application of advocacy approaches.
Online mode
In online mode, students acquire essential theoretical knowledge in health advocacy via a series of asynchronous online lessons which include: recorded lecture content, online readings, online discussion forums and self-directed learning modules. Students are given the opportunity to attend facilitated synchronous online tutorial classes (eg, via virtual classroom via Adobe Connect) to participate in the construction and synthesis of this knowledge with other students so as to develop the higher level skills of effective application of advocacy approaches.