Paper
Saturday, July 14, 2007
This presentation is part of : Initiatives in Women's Health
Building Social Capital with Women
Rhonda Griffiths, RN, DrPH and Rachel Langdon, BAppSc, BA, (Hons). Centre for Applied Nursing Research, Liverpool BC, Australia
Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to identify components of a successful community building program for a disadvantaged community.
Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to design a data collection tool to measure change in a disadvantaged community.

Method: Two cross-sectional surveys of  women living in a disadvantaged suburb of Western Sydney Australia aged 18 to 40 years were completed in 2001 and 2003 and results compared to assess the impact of a social support program that was implemented following the initial data collection in 2001 . The data collection tool contained scales and items validated in previous studies with similar populations in Australia

 

Results: There was no statistical difference between the demographic characteristics of the 2001 and 2003 cohorts, with 17% of women participating in both surveys.  The majority of women (76%) were aged 25-39, were living with a partner and children and were not employed outside the home. 64% were born outside Australia, 26% spoke English poorly or not at all and 61f% spoke a language other than English at home (24% Arabic and 27% Vietnamese). The majority of women report being in good or excellent health although 15% describe their health as fair to poor and a minority (12%) reported emotional problems over the past month. Differences in self-reported mental health (measured by SF-36) were associated with employment status, closeness of home relationships and shared interests with neighbours. Participants in this survey had comparable SF-36 scores to the Australian Longitudinal Women’s Study (AWS) for General Health, Role-Emotional, Vitality and Mental Health scales, however Social Functioning was significantly below the AWS scores. Almost half had never used local services, although 2003 data compared to the 2001 survey demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in knowledge of local services among women who do not speak English.  Data from the 3 years of the program demonstrated that the groups who reported poor health and least community support in 2001 reported significant improvement in 2003.