Reducing Aboriginal children’s tobacco smoke exposure in the Pilbara
A research team led by CUCRH has been awarded a prestigious five-year grant from Healthway to reduce risks from smoking in Port Hedland , a remote centre of Western Australia. Activities started in 2006. |
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A survey completed in late 2006 found that half of Aboriginal adults in Hedland were current smokers. Most families had rules prohibiting smoking in their home but still 30% of people lived in homes where someone smoked inside at least once a week. That means that nearly one third of children are regularly exposed to tobacco smoke. We made sure that the community knew about the survey findings through a series of posters that were displayed in public places. Click here to see all three posters.
Our multi-level community intervention uses harm minimisation strategies to reduce environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure among Aboriginal infants and children (0-6 year olds) in South Hedland. It intervenes at 3 levels: 1) families, 2) the community and 3) organisations and services addressing health and well-being of young Aboriginal children.
Families will be the target of an intensive intervention to raise awareness of their children’s vulnerability, convince them of the desirability and feasibility of reducing ETS exposure, assist them to set achievable goals and to minimise barriers to change by prompting effective strategies and providing rewards. Use of air monitor devices will give immediate feedback about their success in reaching goals.
Community education activities will create a climate open to ETS reduction and tobacco cessation.
Services will also be the focus of awareness raising, involved in community education of anti-smoking and anti-ETS exposure messages and, ultimately, engaged in contributing to the support of individuals’ and families’ harm minimisation efforts.
Some of the activities that the project has sponsored have been a Family Fun Day and community service announcements for a community radio station.
| As part of the NAIDOC festivities in Port Hedland, the Smoke Free Kids project organised a Family Fun Day in July 2007. Held on high school sports ground, over 80 kids of all ages participated in activities like leader ball, tug-of-war, volley ball, athletics, relays, and dodge ball. Health science students from ECUhelped out supervising the games, the water and fruit stall and handing out show bags full of anti-smoking material.
The day had its serious side too, but it was all in good fun. Pilbara Population health had health promotion officers and physiotherapists to demonstrate the effects of smoking on lung capacity and the Butterfly Mobile Day Care service helped younger children to make a banner for the project with the message Caring for our kids. A huge thanks goes to all of the groups that helped out on the day, the Wirrika Maya Health Service and the Pilbara Indigenous Women’s Aboriginal Corporation for the support and helping hand in organizing all of NAIDOC week, and, of course, Healthway who funds the Smoke Free Kids project. The community radio announcements were created using local voices telling their story about environmental tobacco smoke. Each announcement has a tag line ‘smoking is killing our people.’ They are aired regularly on Hedland Community Radio. Smoking in the car |
Fortescue Metal Group donated a sausage sizzle at the 2007 Family Fun Day but couldn’t stay away from a tug-of-war. |
The research team is a unique multi-disciplinary collaboration between a university department of rural health (CUCRH), the Aboriginal Community Controlled health service (ACCHS) sector (Wirraka Maya Health Service and WAACCHO, the WA peak body of ACCHSs) and research excellence in tobacco control health promotion (Child Health Promotion Research Unit, Edith Cowan University). The research team is comprised of Ann Larson, Juli Coffin and Ross James from CUCRH; Julie Walker from Wirraka Maya; Dr Tim Leahy; Prof Donna Cross from Edith Cowan University; and Krassi Rumchev from Curtin University of Technology.
