The Rural Chronic Disease Initiative

Write up of Learnings and Building Healthy Communities Resource Kit

The Rural Chronic Disease Initiative (RCDI) was announced as part of the 2000-2001 Federal Budget. The Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing funded this innovative program to improve the health and well-being of people living in small rural and remote communities across Australia. Its purpose was to develop more skills in health organisations and in the community, to improve what people know about chronic disease, to encourage community members to change their behaviour and provide better ways to help people with chronic disease. The rationale behind the initiative is that many of these chronic diseases are largely preventable. The Department funded 29 projects across Australia.

Monash University School of Rural Health was contracted by the Department to undertake two main functions, they were:

1. to gather and write-up the learnings from the pilot phase of the RCDI (this included the 10 Pilot sites and 19 Innovative Rural Projects)
2. to develop and produce a resource kit to guide future communities undertaking similar projects.

The School of Rural Health’s role was to draw together what had been learnt in the RCDI. To produce a series of learnings (that is what was learnt from the projects) it was necessary to collect and assess the experiences of the RCDI projects both positive and negative, in order to articulate and synthesise what was learnt into a resource guide for use by other communities.

The Project Team

Di Wyatt, Susan Faulkner, Janice Chesters, Marlene Drysdale, Steve Kirkbright, Rob Clough, Helen Carr, Gordon Whyte.

Report of Learnings

As you would expect there was many outcomes and degrees of success from such a wide-ranging group of community projects. There were three main factors that contributed to success:

1. the skills, attitudes and approach of the people in the project teams, especially the project officers;
2. the partnerships and linkages created for the project; and
3. the degree of community ownership of the project.

Time was the single most important challenge for projects, in particular the time needed to consult with and engage the community. Other challenges included the level of skills and capacity within the community and the lack of available training.

Resource Kit

The resource kit is a user-friendly guide developed for use by small rural communities as they undertake similar projects. Our team, on visiting the communities, saw the physical environment, talked to the people involved and found out what they had learnt from conducting RCDI projects. Building Healthy Communities: A Guide for Community Projects, is a result of their feedback and knowledge sharing. It is based on their experiences.

The Resource Kit includes:

1. Printed Guide and Workbook
2. CDROM version of the guide and electronic versions of the worksheets
3. Case study videos in DVD & VHS format featuring three project ‘stories’ from:
   - Texas in Southern Queensland
   - Ouyen in Northwest Victoria
   - Galiwin’ku in Northeast Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.

You can request a copy of the Building Healthy Communities Resource Kit by contacting the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

National Toll Free: 1800 020 103

National Mail and Marketing
PO Box 7077
Canberra BC ACT 2610
Australia

You can access the guide and workbook on-line at the Department of Health and Ageing website.