Impact on community members of a culturally appropriate adaptation of a social and emotional well-being intervention in an aboriginal community
Journal of Public Mental Health
ISSN: 1746-5729
Article publication date: 29 April 2022
Issue publication date: 19 May 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Indigenous Australians report mental health problems at a much higher rate than non-Indigenous Australians. However, rather than more services, it has been proposed that there should be a positive, socially based approach to improving mental health in Indigenous communities. The population-wide Western Australian Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion campaign appeared to be consistent with such an approach. Hence, after consultation with Indigenous community members, a culturally adapted version of the campaign was developed and launched in a largely Indigenous remote Australian community. A survey of Indigenous community members was conducted two years later to assess campaign impact. The aim of this paper is to report on the impact on community members of this cultural adaptation.
Design/methodology/approach
Intercept interviews were conducted with Indigenous community members (n = 31) to assess respondents’ awareness of the campaign elements and activities, understanding of campaign messages and whether respondents had undertaken activities to improve their own or their family’s social and emotional well-being as a result of the campaign.
Findings
There was universal awareness of the adapted campaign in this sample, with 81% reporting doing something for their own social and emotional well-being, 74% reporting doing something for the social and emotional well-being of their family or friends and 48% reporting doing something for community well-being, as a result of campaign exposure.
Originality/value
The cultural adaptation of the Act-Belong-Commit campaign in the Australian Roebourne community is the first reported Indigenous adaptation of a population-wide mental health promotion campaign.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University and the Act-Belong-Commit campaign acknowledge the Roebourne community, the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people, other local language groups and their elders, as well as community organisation representatives for their guidance and support of Act-Belong-Commit in Roebourne. The authors would like to especially acknowledge the assistance of Ngarluma woman Ms Jolleen Hicks, founder of Aboriginal Insights, who assisted greatly with the initial consultation in Roebourne.Funding statement: The authors acknowledge the support from the Act-Belong-Commit principal funders, the Health Promotion Foundation of Western Australia (Healthway), the Western Australian Mental Health Commission and the project partner Chevron Australia.Ethics approval statement: The project received ethics approval from Curtin University’s Human Research Ethics Committee (HR02/2016) and the Western Australian Aboriginal Health Ethics Committee (HREC Reference #574).
Citation
Anwar-McHenry, J., Murray, L., Drane, C.F., Owen, J., Nicholas, A. and Donovan, R.J. (2022), "Impact on community members of a culturally appropriate adaptation of a social and emotional well-being intervention in an aboriginal community", Journal of Public Mental Health, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 108-118. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPMH-09-2021-0109
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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