Evaluation of the Healthy Village Program in Kapit District, Sarawak, Malaysia

Sarawak, Malaysia has a large population of ethnic minorities who live in longhouses in remote rural areas where poverty, non-communicable diseases, accidents and injuries, environmental hazards and communicable diseases all contribute to a lower quality of life than is possible to achieve in these...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Health promotion international Vol. 21; no. 1; pp. 13 - 18
Main Authors:	Kiyu, Andrew, Steinkuehler, Ashley A., Hashim, Jamilah, Hall, John, Lee, Peter F. S., Taylor, Richard
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England Oxford University Press 01-03-2006 Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
Subjects:	Ethnic minorities evaluation Focus Groups Health Health Education Health promotion Health Promotion - organization & administration healthy village Humans Interviews as Topic longhouse Longhouses Malaysia Medical service, Rural ORIGINAL PAPERS Public health education Quality of life rural Rural areas Rural Health Rural population Sarawak Sarawak (state), Malaysia World Health Organization Malaysia Borneo, Sarawak
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	Sarawak, Malaysia has a large population of ethnic minorities who live in longhouses in remote rural areas where poverty, non-communicable diseases, accidents and injuries, environmental hazards and communicable diseases all contribute to a lower quality of life than is possible to achieve in these regions. To address these issues and improve the quality of life for longhouse people, the Kapit Divisional Health Office implemented the World Health Organization's Healthy Village programme in 2000. An evaluation was undertaken in 2003 to determine physical and behavioural changes resulting from the programme. The main changes evaluated were those involving smoking habits, exercise habits, health screening, fire safety, environmental improvements and food preparation and hygiene. A qualitative evaluation was conducted using participant observation and key-informant interviews, focus groups and observation. Results indicate that the programme is inspiring changes in various behavioural and physical characteristics of the study population. It is clear that the Healthy Village programme is a widely accepted way of improving health outcomes in longhouses, and that it is succeeding in making beneficial health changes.
Bibliography:	local:dai034 Address for correspondence: John Hall School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Edward Ford Building, A27 NSW 2006, Australia E-mail: johnh@health.usyd.edu.au ark:/67375/HXZ-2ZQM6T08-G istex:CBCA6DF49C524CEA756942F4DD4733A4F3E15E0D ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0957-4824 1460-2245
DOI:	10.1093/heapro/dai034