Assignment 1 Elsbeth Lions

Reflective Journal 1 April 04, 2017

As individuals, we may experience personal troubles without realising they are shared by
other people as well. If certain problems are shared by groups of people, they may have a
common cause and be dealt with through collective action. (as cited in Germov, 2014, p. 7)

During my first Health workshop, I participated in a group activity involving sociological

imagination, and in addition the group discussed the historical, structural, cultural and critical
factors that affected us, as students, attending Flinders University.

This exercise was significant to me because, as a group activity, each member shared their own
views on attending university as a first-year student and I found that each of our uncertainties
were very similar. This activity helped me to realise that all my worries and anxieties about
attending university for the first time were also concerns of many of my class mates.

Charles Wright Mills coined the idea about sociological imagination and this helps individuals
to link personal troubles with public issues. Mills (1959) states that sociological imagination
offers an understanding of the intimate realities of ourselves in connection with larger social
realities (p. 7). This concept ties in with the way that I interpreted my personal issues, and
dwelled over them, and then I was able to discover that they were also concerns of other people
around me. Historical factors such as parents and family members constant pressures to get an
adequate job and the standard to choose only one pathway to getting a job and sticking with it
were both concerns of all my group members, as well as cultural factors which highlighted the
values and beliefs within a certain culture that shaped the expectation to get a job that is
accepted by your culture. The structural factors revolved around experiences, such as my own
experience in coaching a junior netball team, which has lead me to studying primary school
teaching at Flinders University, while the group resemblance of a structural factor was that we
understood that typically, future employers may consider us better for a job if we had obtained
a University degree. The group agreed that the critical factor for this task was that we should
encourage acceptance for people who wish to take a different path into their future job or career,
such as attending TAFE or completing an apprenticeship. We also discussed that we are
allowed to feel happy about what we have chosen to do with our lives and accept that our future
should be chosen on our own grounds.
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Each of these topics of discussion in the group activity were important to me because discussing
these worries that we each had, and finding that they were very similar to each other, helped
me to realise that I was not as alone as I had initially thought I was. I felt much more
comfortable and at ease as this realisation occurred and was able to identify that my personal
problem had relevance to this particular social group in my Health workshop.

I was able to link this particular group task to Mills idea about sociological imagination to our
class activity by understanding that personal issues, can also be relevant to issues that others
share in society, with the common cause being that we were studying a new area and attending
Flinders University for the first time.

Reference:

(Germov, J. (2014). Chapter 1: Imagining Health Problems as Social Issues. Second Opinion:
An Introduction to Health Sociology (5th Edition., pp 8-10). Victoria, Australia: Oxford)
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Reflective Journal 2 May 02, 2017

During Week 8, the weekly topic was Indigenous Health in Australia, and to learn about this
topic, during the workshop, we watched an Australian film called Beneath Clouds. The film
followed an Aboriginal girl, however light skinned and blonde, Lena, on her journey to Sydney
to reunite with her father. She meets a recently escaped convict, Vaughn, who is of Aboriginal
descent, who has broken from prison to visit his recently sick mother. They travel together,
both walking and hitchhiking, to Sydney. The movie revolved around an Indigenous
community and demonstrated this particular communitys health and well-being issues. Health
issues that are sociologically generated in Indigenous communities relates to sociological
imagination, developed by Charles Wright Mills (1959, p 7). Historical factors that influence
Aboriginal health and social health are the invasion of European settlers, and along with this,
a loss of culture, due to their land being dispossessed and this demonstrates a cultural factor.
Structural factors include the behaviour of smoking and alcoholism influencing the lives of
Indigenous people, while critical factors include attempting to construct effective health
models to improve the health of Indigenous Australians.

The historical factors presented throughout the film centred around Vaughns views on the
invasion of his peoples land by Europeans. He seemed to hold prejudice against white people
in Australia, including Lena. This prejudice is especially shown when himself and Lena go into
a corn field to find food. A Caucasian farmer appears and threatens the pair to leave his land,
where Vaughn emphasises to the farmer, You stole this land. This behaviour reflecting
historical factors, shows the history of his people that have an influence on Vaughns views
about his culture.

The issues of European settlers effecting the sociological health of Indigenous people in
Australia bring about cultural factors influencing the lives of Aboriginal people. Due to loss of
land and loss of a traditional way of life, a loss of culture has occurred, resulting from the
European settlers. Vaughn feels that his people have been disrespected and that the European
settlers have no right to simply steal things that traditionally did not belong to them, and these
beliefs have come about from his history and culture.

Within the first 10 minutes of the film, the structural factors of sociological health become
evident in the Aboriginal community that Lena lives in, with the significant social health issues
and problems that effected the people that lived there. One of the most prominent social health
issues that was shown in the film was smoking. The children in the film seem to be around the
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ages of 10-12 years old, and demonstrate smoking as an everyday behaviour, and the people
around them, such as Lena, dont seem to too fazed about the children smoking. Germov (2014)
shows that in Australia, smoking was responsible for 11.6% of deaths in 2003 and that smoking
is twice as common among Indigenous Australians (p. 149). This statistic relates to the movie
shown in class because smoking from a young age can cause the habit to be more prominent
and has the potential to be especially harmful for the rest of their lives, and in turn, likely to
shorten lifespan.

As well as smoking, another structural factor shown throughout the movie is alcohol
consumption, and it seemed to be a common pastime for adults in the community. Germov
(2014) backs this up by stating alcoholic behaviours in Indigenous Australians from a 2011
National Drug Strategy Household Survey. He states that 24.6 per cent [of those surveyed]
drink at levels likely to cause risk or high risk to their health in the short term; and 31.0 per
cent drink at levels likely to cause risk or high risk to their health in the long term (p. 149).
These statistics show that a significant amount of people within the Aboriginal community
have alcoholic tendencies and this behaviour can be easily transferred and learnt by the children
in that community.

The main solution to reduce the inequalities within Indigenous health and experienced by
Aboriginal people, while incorporating critical factors of sociological thinking, is to abolish
racism and prejudice. We must rebuild the bridges that have been burnt, and make more of an
effort to help and assist the Indigenous community as a whole, in producing more efficient
health among Indigenous people.

This movie was relevant to me because as an Aboriginal person, with many Indigenous
relatives and family, I am able to understand more about how their health is effected by their
circumstances. I am able to relate the film and the common sociological health issues to my
real life experiences, because almost all of my Aboriginal family members participate in
smoking and drinking alcohol regularly. As well as these behavioural health issues, I have had
many aunties and uncles, grandparents and cousins pass away due to heart attacks, diabetes
and other significant health issues. I was able to develop my own understanding through the
use of the film and the use of Chapter 8: Indigenous Health in the Second Opinion textbook
to understand how Indigenous people are at much higher risk of developing and living with
severe health issues and sociological health problems.
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Reference:

(Germov, J. (2014). Chapter 1: Imagining Health Problems as Social Issues. Second Opinion:
An Introduction to Health Sociology (5th Edition., pp 8-10). Victoria, Australia: Oxford)
 Assignment 1 Elsbeth Lions

Reflective Journal 2 May 19th, 2017

In Week 10, the chapter we studied in the health workshop was Chapter 24: A Sociology of
Health Promotion (Germov, Freij & Richmond, 2014). This chapter discusses the way in which
good public health is promoted and the way that Australia aims to improve it. I missed my
usual workshop during this week, so I joined Kristen Stevens class as a catch-up lesson. I
thought this topic was interesting because throughout my schooling years I had experienced a
lot of health promotion programs and these can be related to this particular chapter in the book,
as well as the The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion.

Germov, Freij & Richmond (2014), in the beginning of chapter 24, emphasise on the social
model of health throughout time, and how it has changed our views of what good public health
is (p. 465). They demonstrate that prior to the 1970s, the main health method in Australia was
a three-pronged approach which addressed the main aspects of the requirements in the
community to enable effective health and illness for Australia (Germov, Freij & Richmond,
2014). This viewpoint highlighted that there must be: basic health facilities available to the
public, an example being clean water or a sewerage system; hospital-based services; and health
education provided to the community (Germov, Freij & Richmond, 2014). Since then, health
strategies and approaches have developed and have become much more defined to achieve
better health for the public, however the previous method is a broad view of what there needs
to be in a society for its health to be adequate and successful.

Throughout my own experiences, I have had some interaction with each of these key aspects
in developing societal health and bettering health education. To provide basic health related
requirements such as water and sewerage is essential for todays society and it is extremely
important for all people to have access to these bare necessities. Without clean water, increase
of disease and sickness would occur, and it would be difficult to prevent without modern ways
of sanitation (Medical Ethics and Health, 2015). In Australia, clean water and acceptable
sewerage systems are relevant and as I live in Australia, it is a basic requirement to have these
in our society.

In Australia, we are extremely lucky to have such an outstanding health system and in todays
society, where it is easy to prevent disease and spread of disease with simple things such as
clean water. Hospital based services in Australia refers to strategies such as Medicare, which
help to make medical treatment more effective and affordable for the public. In addition to this,
providing free healthcare to lower class citizens who cannot afford it, with the use of Healthcare
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cards, is a functional way to ensure that all Australians have access to medical services. Having
easy access to medication and medically assisting treatments helps to provide the best care
possible and each of these strategies creates an incomparable hospital and medical system,
which enables us to create better public health.

Health promotion and providing health education is a common thing among Australian
communities, and health education is one of the ways that helps to improve public health in the
community. Health education is seen in many forms: through media, such as on television and
on social media sites like Facebook; through hospital services and help groups; and through
schools and educational programs. There are certainly many more ways we receive health
education and are encouraged to look further and learn more about health education, however
the ones I have highlighted are what I think to be some of the most common ways we hear
about health in todays society. The health education strategy that stands out the most to me is
promoting health education in schools. Throughout my entire primary schooling experience,
the school I attended deemed physical education and health education to be extremely
important, and as a result of this, I participated in many physical and health educational
activities, programs and events. Some of the programs that I was involved in were Jump Rope
for Heart, Premiers Be Active Challenge, the Healthy Harold van, and a program very
similar to CirKids. These activities were extremely effective in enabling young children to
develop a good understanding of health and ways to be healthy, as well as providing education
about health to ensure that good habits were being developed.

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion was a model developed to help health promotion and
ensure change and improvement in public health (Figure 1) and it was subtitled The Move
Towards a New Public Health (The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 1986) (Germov,
Freij & Richmond, 2014). Through my own primary school experiences, many of the programs
I took part in, demonstrated the key factors that the Ottawa Charter has developed for health
promotion and education.
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Figure 1: (The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 1986)

Strengthen Community Action

This was demonstrated through all of the programs that I mentioned, Jump Rope for Heart,
Premiers Be Active Challenge, the Healthy Harold van, and CirKids, as the school wanted
the students to take part and develop their own understanding, and so they put the program
forth within the school. Each child was able to learn and become more aware about health
aspects due to these programs being run in the school community.

Develop personal skills

Through the use of these programs being facilitated to children of a young age, the students
were able to develop good health habits early, and begin to understand the importance of
physical health and health in general. They helped to develop good lifestyle habits and
behavioural practices to ensure they have good health throughout their lives. For example, the
Healthy Harold van was a great way to educate kids about many things that can be both
beneficial and harmful to personal health. When I participated in this activity, we learnt about
the harms of alcohol and drugs, road safety, healthy and unhealthy foods, sexual education,
and ways of getting help if we were in trouble, such as knowing the number to dial to reach the
police. It was a fun and interactive way of learning new things related to health and it was
presented in a way that we, as children, could understand easily, to help educate and ensure
good behavioural changes were being made.
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Create supportive environments

Creating sustainable and supportive environments was also an essential of the Healthy Harold
van program, and this was demonstrated through the programs way of educating. They
educated us in a way that helped us understand the risks of harmful choices such as partaking
in the misuse of drugs and discarding road safety, and urging us to make good choices for
ourselves and make sure that we are safe in our own lives.

Reorient health services

With the use of the Jump Rope for Heart program, the Premiers Be Active Challenge and
CirKids, the school was able to show us ways of bettering our own health, as well as ways to
improve and maintain a good, healthy lifestyle. The Healthy Harold van in particular, taught
us about hospital services and our health system in Australia, to show us how it is operated and
how we can use these facilities.

Build healthy public policy

Each of the programs I mentioned were used to promote health and educate about health
benefits. They enabled us to understand good health and helped us to make a change for
ourselves, for the better. Although they did not help us to 100% build better and healthier public
policy, they did help to shape our understanding on the importance of a healthy lifestyle and
the benefits that will help us to have a better, more fulfilling life.

During primary school, at the time I did not think that these programs were significantly health
promotional and educational, however throughout my study of Health over the past semester,
I have come to understand the real purpose that these programs have and how they have helped
me to have a healthier lifestyle. I did not realise at the time, but my school has helped me
greatly to develop good habits and has shown me how to have a successful and healthy life.
Simple programs such as Jump Rope for Heart, Premiers Be Active Challenge the Healthy
Harold van, and CirKids, and my own experiences in these programs, has helped me to
understand how Australia aims to improve public health through schools and improving the
lifestyles of the future generations.
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Reference List

Germov, J., Freij, M., & Richmond, K. (2014). A Sociology of Health Promotion. In J.
Germov, Second Opinion: An Introduction to Health Sociology (5th ed., pp. 464-477).
Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press.

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. (1986). World Health Organization. Retrieved 1
June 2017, from
http://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/previous/ottawa/en/index1.html

What happens when you dont have clean water? | Medical Ethics and Health. (2015). Medical
Ethics and Health. Retrieved 30 May 2017, from
https://sites.psu.edu/mehealth/2015/02/20/what-happens-when-you-dont-have-clean-
water/