Building Healthy Communities: The Rural Chronic Disease Initiative

Abstract

The Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing funded an innovative program to improve the health and wellbeing of people living in small rural and remote communities across Australia. The Rural Chronic Disease Initiative (RCDI) was announced in late 2002 as part of the 2000-2001 Federal Budget. Its purpose was to develop more skills in health organisations and in the community, to improve what people know about chronic disease, to encourage community members to change their behaviour and provide better ways to help people with chronic disease. The department funded 29 small projects across Australia. There will be many outcomes and degrees of success from such a wide-ranging group of community projects. There were three main factors that contributed to success: the skills of the people in project teams and employed as project officers; the partnerships and linkages created for the project; and the degree of community ownership of or engagement with the project. Time was the most important challenge for projects, in particular the time needed to consult with and engage the community. Other challenges included the level of skills and capacity within the community and the lack of available training and accreditation. The RCDI projects have shown that rural and remote communities in Australia can initiate, develop and implement a range of successful strategies to prevent and better manage chronic diseases.