Ethnic community stakeholders as partners in primary and secondary diabetes prevention

Abstract

Recently renamed ?Listening to Ethnic Communities about Diabetes?, this project was a winner of the 2003 Innovation and Excellence in Primary Health Care Award, Community and Consumer Participation category. The project is also being promoted as a model of best practice in culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) community engagement. Listening to Ethnic Communities about Diabetes focused on Type 2 diabetes by developing, piloting and evaluating culturally appropriate primary and secondary prevention health promotion strategies with Maltese, Filipino and Vietnamese communities in the municipality of Brimbank, Victoria. One of the critical success factors for the project was that, while the project was grounded in a health promotion framework, the lead agency did not have a great deal of health expertise. Rather, the focus of its expertise was on relationships with ethnic communities. This allowed for a shift in traditional power structures as the communities were given a real voice and decision-making powers. While the health service providers had the clinical and practical knowledge and expertise in diabetes, it was the involvement of the ethno-specific organisations and ethnic community representatives that enabled the project to develop and pilot models of service provision which had relevance and accessibility to the target community. The project also demonstrated the value in utilising a diverse range of strategies that reflect the cultural practices and preferences of the target communities through being developed and tested in partnership with the communities.