The way we were: a snapshot of Australian public health in 1993

Abstract

Margo Saunders, BA, Public Health Policy Researcher and Consultant, Canberra, Australia takes an interesting trip down memory lane with a set of public health journals from 1993Opening a dusty and undisturbed set of public health journals from 1993 provided one of those 'time capsule' moments in which the old and the new seem closely entwined. It was simply impossible to ignore the contemporary relevance of so much of the information and insights within the pages of the twenty-year old issues of the Australian Journal of Public Health (now the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health).A number of articles focus on the different ways that men and women, and people who live in different types of localities, receive and prefer to receive health information - an important issue today, given the increasing attention being paid to health literacy. Relevant to current discussions about the role of primary care providers in preventive health are several studies which discuss survey respondents' views about doctors and pharmacists as sources of preventive health. The articles also mention, almost casually, concepts such as 'emotional barriers to health care' and 'response efficacy' - significant concepts which deserve, and are beginning to receive, greater recognition today. It was also fascinating to read about screenings and surveys involving thousands of participants, well before the internet era.Information-seeking behaviour and health risk behavioursGiven the emergence of health literacy as a key factor in health outcomes, a study which considered the possible association between information-seeking and health risk behaviours was of particular interest.1 Today's health literacy researchers who bemoan the focus on 'patients' and 'health care' rather than prevention2 would be interested in the questionnaire (152 items!) administered to more than 2,000 adults on knowledge, attitude and behaviour in relation to preventive health, as well as sources of health information. Also included were questions about use of existing health services and questions designed to assess community skills and locus of control.The findings revealed the considerable weight given to prevention information from medical practitioners, even though they were not the principal source of health information; there were also gender-based differences in preferred sources of information. Overall, health information-seeking was significantly related to health actions and inversely related to risky behaviour.The authors acknowledged that their findings leave unanswered questions about the causal relationship between information-seeking and health status, and they highlight the need for continuing research into 'the complex and costly issue of risk factor determinants'. They conclude by drawing attention to the important issue of 'emotional barriers' in accessing health services, particularly for some groups.How fascinating it would be to run an updated version of this survey to take account of new media and insights into gendered aspects of information-seeking and preventive health behaviour!Information for preventive health care in rural AustraliaThe ways in which people in rural Australia access information about illness prevention provided the focus of another article about health information (which, like the article by Kassulke, makes no mention of 'health literacy').3The answers to two questions - what sources of preventive health information are regarded as important, and do information media differ in their importance to difference groups - reveal a number of gender-based differences in information sources and also highlight the role of medical practitioners and pharmacists as the dominant source of information about illness prevention. 'Almost without exception,' the authors report, 'this primacy held across all groups of respondents, regardless of age, sex or geographic location'. …