Abstract:

Falls among older people are a major health problem. They occur in the community, residential and acute care settings. This has been recognised and it has been identified as one amongst the National Health Priority Areas in Australia. As such an initiative, the National Falls Prevention For Older People which aims to reduce the incidence, severity and mortality associated with falls in people aged 65 and over in broader context is funded by the Commonwealth Government. The Community Demonstration projects which aim to prevent falls among the community dwelling older people are part of the broader initiative. The Whyalla falls prevention for Community dwelling older people project uses evidence based multi-interventions and best practice strategies which have been identified to be effective. The objectives are: (i) to increase awareness of falls and interventions among stakeholder(services providers and the Whyalla community);(ii) to enhance access to falls prevention information, strategies and activities for stakeholders; (iii) to build falls prevention capacity through workforce development (iv) to build partnerships among stakeholders interested in falls prevention among older people and (v) to recommend policy formulation that will impact on resource mobilisation, communication strategies, service delivery and community development within a local capacity. The Project implementation utilises the Participatory Action Research (PAR) method. The PAR comprises mixtures of designs, processes and evaluation data collection activities. As such a multimethods data collection have been conducted using methods such as key informants interviews, focus group discussions, GP Divisional data (e.g. EPC-MBS item number usage), community surveys and case studies. In addition, the project officer keeps the journal where all the field observational data is kept. All data is then analysed and fed back to the stakeholder representatives for reflection. PAR has progressively helped us to formatively analyse the system and subsequently refine the project implementation. The PAR has been useful in enhancing the understanding of important issues for establishment and implementation of multi-interventions falls prevention project with a local perspective.