The document outlines a four-phase activity to develop culturally appropriate online health resources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities as well as several CALD populations in Australia. The activity will be overseen by ASHM and involves auditing existing resources, consulting with communities, developing new resources, distributing and promoting them, and evaluating their uptake. Key steps include establishing advisory committees, reviewing current resources, holding workshops to prioritize new materials, subcontracting organizations to create resources, and measuring the impact through surveys and web analytics. The goal is to prevent blood-borne viruses and sexually transmitted infections among these at-risk communities through improved health education.
Recent name change (Sep 15) – Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine
Prioritisation will be guided by:
disease burden
latest epidemiology (Kirby surveillance reports; ASHM-VIDRL HBV Mapping Project; state disease notification reports)
population priorities (determined by the agencies representing the populations plus information including migration flows, languages spoken and demographics)
The advisory committees will primarily participate in the first project phase.
They will also:
oversee the audit/stocktake of existing resources
participate in consultation and prioritisation workshops
provide input into the priorities matrix
A small Steering Committee with decision-making capacity will select eligible agencies to be sub-contracted to develop toolkits The Steering Committee will comprise representation from each Advisory Committee; an ASHM representative; and technical experts in evaluation, community, resource development and promotion, IT and the disease areas. The Steering Committee will oversee the project with input from the Advisory Committees. It will have formal delegation for decision-making to allocate resources to those sub-contracted for toolkit development.
A promotion and distribution plan will be developed by ASHM (with Committees’ inputs). This will seek to maximise uptake by leveraging networks/agencies with large community reach (particularly online reach), identifying community and opinion leaders to act as ambassadors, and through planning launches at key cultural events (e.g. Yabun Festival; Tet Festivities). Collaborating agencies will be supported to liaise with local partners, including healthcare and community workers and organisations, to encourage promotion of toolkits through their clients where possible.
Web-based content will be mobile-friendly and integrated with ASHM and collaborating agencies’ existing online and social media presence to maximise promotion and reach. Search engine optimisation and search engine marketing will be used where applicable. Content may be hosted on simple websites utilising Joomla or similar user-friendly systems, or be a migration of existing state-centric web resources (e.g. Take Blaktion) to websites with national applicability
M&E activities will measure uptake of the education toolkits on an ongoing basis through client surveys at collaborating agencies and monitoring of web-based metrics. This monitoring will provide an ongoing ‘feedback loop’ to identify which resources are working effectively and where uptake could be improved (for instance through strengthening marketing and promotion).