Aims: To decrease mortality and morbidity rates from chronic diseases and improve the health of the Negev population; and to decrease levels of known risk factors among the diverse populations of the Negev.
The target population is Arab Bedouins, Jewish immigrants from the Former Soviet Union and Ethiopian Jews.
Click here >> for statistics about the risk factors and chronic disease in the Negev.
Principles
An integrated approach to chronic disease prevention- Utilisation of existing programmes, organisation and health service structure, using the knowledge of various stakeholders
- Demographic and cultural sensitivity
- Community involvement and ownership
- Creative partnerships to create ‘win–win’ situations to encourage cross-sector cooperation in cost-effective strategies for improving health at the population level
Intervention activities
As with all CIH projects >>, interventions will take place in four locations:
Workplaces
- Policy change led by the workplace management, involving meetings with senior management about environmental change, such as prohibition of smoking within company premises and healthier food options for employees.
- Health education, including lectures to the employees, distribution of brochures and information material, personal counselling on chronic disease risk factors and prevention by healthcare professionals, and the creation of support groups.
- Collaboration with health service providers, employee representatives and management.
Neighbourhoods
The programme will be held in community centres (cultural and sports centres, new immigrant centres, centres for the elderly, recreation centres, and women’s organisation centres) and will include:
- Incorporating health into existing programmes and health fairs. Lectures on health, in particular on tobacco-use prevention and cessation, healthy diet, physical activity and stress will become part of the curriculum of community centres
- Environmental changes, including strategies for creating and implementing smoking bans and increasing availability of healthier food options
- Encouraging the establishment of support groups for smoking cessation, weight loss, exercise and stress reduction.
Health centres
A policy shift towards a greater focus on health promotion and disease prevention is already occurring within the healthcare system in Israel. CIH will strengthen this new policy and encourage interventions within the health sector. The ultimate goal is cooperation between all healthcare providers.
This component of the intervention will include:
- Mother and child clinics to provide services beyond vaccination and monitoring of child development to include:
- counselling on the importance of routine check-ups for blood pressure, cholesterol, breast and colon cancer;
- advice on family dietary habits, physical activity, smoking prevention and cessation.
- Prevention programmes:
- strengthening the treatment and follow-up of high risk patients;
- health education programmes;
- dissemination of educational material by physicians and nurses targeted at individual patients;
- organisation of public lectures on healthy lifestyle and chronic disease prevention;
- training of physicians and nurses regarding healthy diets, smoking cessation, improving compliance with drug treatment, and lifestyle modification.
- Educational interventions including the use of the EMR (electronic medical record) to improve physician motivation to provide preventive counselling.
- Hospitals: In the Negev there is one central general hospital and one hospital for mental health. The following interventions will be carried out:
- Environmental change: ban of smoking in all hospital facilities, training on smoking and smoking cessation to all hospital staff, introduction of healthier menus in hospital restaurants. Posters and brochures will be disseminated within the hospital premises.
- Using medical students to serve as individual advisers for smoking cessation for hospitalised patients.
Schools
The programme will include:
- Policy change, such as advocating for increased physical activity opportunities and healthier food options in the cafeteria.
- Health education for all ages.
- Parent involvement in activities promoting healthy lifestyles.
- Environmental changes through programmes to ban smoking in schools, changes in menus offered to pupils through catering services and kiosks and planting trees in order to provide shade and thus incentives for physical activity outdoors.
Empowerment of women
This element of the project will focus on empowering women as advocates for the adoption of a healthy lifestyle. The objective is to enable women to take greater responsibility for their personal and family health. The programme will include two stages:
- Educated women from each population sector will be trained to serve as healthy life style guides in the community.
- The women trained as peer instructors will organise groups of women within their own community and train them regarding improved health behaviour. This training will take place in private homes, community centres, kindergartens, mother-and-child health clinics and health services clinics.
What is already being done in Israel?
Click here >> to read about some existing projects.