IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v48y1999i5p683-692.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reducing coronary heart disease in the Australian Coalfields: evaluation of a 10-year community intervention

Author

Listed:
  • Higginbotham, Nick
  • Heading, Gaynor
  • McElduff, Patrick
  • Dobson, Annette
  • Heller, Richard

Abstract

Coronary heart disease is a leading cause of death in Australia with the Coalfields district of New South Wales having one of the country's highest rates. Identification of the Coalfields epidemic in the 1970's led to the formation of a community awareness program in the late 1980's (the healthy heart support group) followed by a more intense community action program in 1990, the Coalfields Healthy Heartbeat (CHHB). CHHB is a coalition of community members, local government officers, health workers and University researchers. We evaluate the CHHB program, examining both the nature and sustainability of heart health activities undertaken, as well as trends in risk factor levels and rates of coronary events in the Coalfields in comparison with nearby local government areas. Process data reveal difficulties mobilising the community as a whole; activities had to be selected for interested subgroups such as families of heart disease patients, school children, retired people and women concerned with family nutrition and body maintenance. Outcome data show a significantly larger reduction in case fatality for Coalfields men (although nonfatal heart attacks did not decline) while changes in risk factors levels were comparable with surrounding areas. We explain positive responses to the CHHB by schools, heart attack survivors and women interested in body maintenance in terms of the meaning these subgroups find in health promotion discourses based on their embodied experiences. When faced with a threat to one's identity, health discourse suddenly becomes meaningful along with the regimens for health improvement. General public disinterest in heart health promotion is examined in the context of historical patterns of outsiders criticising the lifestyle of miners, an orientation toward communal rather than individual responsibility for health (i.e. community 'owned' emergency services and hospitals) and anger about risks from environmental hazards imposed by industrialists.

Suggested Citation

  • Higginbotham, Nick & Heading, Gaynor & McElduff, Patrick & Dobson, Annette & Heller, Richard, 1999. "Reducing coronary heart disease in the Australian Coalfields: evaluation of a 10-year community intervention," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 683-692, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:48:y:1999:i:5:p:683-692
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(98)00384-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Javier Cortes-Ramirez & Darren Wraith & Peter D. Sly & Paul Jagals, 2022. "Mapping the Morbidity Risk Associated with Coal Mining in Queensland, Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-14, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:48:y:1999:i:5:p:683-692. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.