$10.7 Million to Combat Indigenous Smoking

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PDF printable version of $10.7 Million to Combat Indigenous Smoking (PDF 33 KB)

5 March 2010

The Minister for Indigenous Health, Warren Snowdon, today announced 14 sites across the country will benefit from a $10.7 million funding round to promote innovative anti-tobacco campaigns and prevention strategies.

The Australian Government’s Indigenous Tobacco Control Initiative aims to reduce smoking rates among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in urban, regional and remote areas.

“Half of Indigenous adults are smokers, and the rate of smoking in the Indigenous population is about twice the rate of the non-Indigenous population. That needs to change,” Mr Snowdon said.

“These projects are based on innovative and cultural-appropriate, community-based approaches. They are also in areas which have higher than average smoking rates,” he said.

“The initiatives range from starting up a Quit Café, establishing support groups for new parents, promoting role models, to offering counselling to get their message across.

“They tackle a variety of Indigenous groups. Teenagers, pregnant women, families and homeless people are among the target audiences,” Mr Snowdon said.

“A number of respected organisations have been chosen including the Asthma Foundation of WA, the Cancer Council of Queensland, the Bila Muuji Regional Aboriginal Health Service in New South Wales and the Menzies School of Health Research in the Northern Territory.”

The Minister made the announcement at the Sunrise Health Service Aboriginal Corporation in Katherine, south of Darwin, which received $1m in funding to promote smoke free messages.

The Indigenous Tobacco Control Initiative was launched in March 2008 with a commitment of $14.5 million over three years. Funding of $3.8 million was provided for six projects in 2008-09

The initiative is paving the way for a comprehensive national approach to tackling the issue through the Australian Government’s $100.6 million Tackling Smoking measure under COAG’s National Partnership Agreement on Closing the Gap in Indigenous Health Outcomes.

Media contact: Nick Cox 02 6277 7380

Applicant Organisation	Location	Description of Project	Funding (GST incl)
Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Co-operative	The proposal covers rural areas of the Gippsland region of Victoria	The project aims to inform young (10-18 y/o) Indigenous people of the health risks associated with smoking by developing TV advertisements and recruiting Indigenous leaders to become role models. It will target Indigenous youth by promoting through the media, community workshops and mentors, community members’ stories on the effects of smoking. It provides an early intervention approach to reduce the likelihood of the uptake of smoking. This project will increase the community’s understanding of the effects of smoking and engage youth in smoking cessation workshops.	$805,688
Latrobe Community Health Service	The proposal covers rural areas of the Latrobe Valley region of Victoria	This project targets pregnant Indigenous women. The project team will work with key stakeholders to develop a culturally-appropriate smoking cessation program aimed specifically at pregnant Indigenous women. This will include resources highlighting the harms of smoking and its effects on unborn babies.	$290,458
Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO)	The proposal covers urban and rural areas of Victoria	The project builds on existing evidence around Aboriginal tobacco control. It targets Indigenous smokers through the development of workplace smoke-free policies for Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations. It will assist those in the health workforce who have Indigenous clients to access training and post training support to deliver smoking cessation practice in three regions of Victoria.	$934,757
Mission Australia – Sydney CBD/Parramatta LGA – NSW	The proposal covers the urban area of Sydney and Parramatta, New South Wales.	This project targets homeless or at risk of homelessness Indigenous Australians. The project aims to educate clients on the harms associated with the use of tobacco, develop the skills of clients in decision making and develop networks to provide pathways to appropriate cessation programs and other health and life skills programs.	$331,298
Maari Ma Aboriginal Health Corporation	The proposal covers rural and remote communities in Western NSW including: Balranald, Dareton, Ivanhoe, Menindee, Tibooburra, Wentworth, Wilcannia, White Cliffs and Broken Hill.	The project is designed to enhance the corporation’s existing evidence-based screening, brief intervention and smoking cessation program, which has been delivered since 2005. It will focus on implementing a variety of strategies to engage young people and pregnant women in different communities through improving community health literacy about the benefits of not smoking and highlighting a smoking cessation program with already demonstrated success.	$635,726
Bila Muuji Regional Aboriginal Health Service	The proposal covers rural and remote communities in Central and Western NSW including: Brewarrina, Bourke, Cobar, Coonamble, Dubbo, Gongolgon, Orange, Walgett & Wellington.	The project covers a number of different sized and located communities to improve the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people by reducing the prevalence of cigarette smoking in those communities. It will provide various nicotine replacement therapies and quit counselling. Each community will be engaged in developing plans to address environmental smoke through a ‘smoke free home’ campaign and de-normalising smoking within the community.	$3,000,000
Mid North Coast (NSW) Division of General Practice	The proposal covers urban and rural areas of the Mid North Coast of NSW including: Grafton, Coffs Harbour, Casino, Tweed Heads, Kempsey, Macksville, Nambucca, Bowraville	This project is designed to equip Aboriginal people with necessary skills, resources and support to commence harm reduction and smoking cessation programs on the North Coast of New South Wales. It proposes interventions at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. The project targets Indigenous youth, young families and hard-to-treat smokers through different approaches: an education prevention component designed for primary school children, a Quit Café and parenting support group for new and expectant parents, a educational/prevention DVD and website targeting the community, a culturally targeted cessation program for hard-to-treat smokers and a workforce development component.	$709,516
Cancer Council Queensland	The proposal covers urban, rural and remote communities in Queensland	The project is designed to equip health professionals and key community members working with pregnant Indigenous women with a high level of knowledge and skills in smoking cessation and community development. A training package will be developed specifically for health professionals and community members who work with pregnant Indigenous women. These health professionals will then have the ability to return to their own communities and implement smoking cessation programs that are sensitive to their community’s needs.	$480,000
Darling Downs Shared Care Inc	The proposal covers rural area of Toowoomba, Queensland	The project is an integrated, comprehensive program which will promote smoking cessation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Toowoomba. The project will assist the community to develop their own resources and train health workers to assist the community to develop strategies and programs.	$525,875
Asthma Foundation of WA	The proposal has the potential to cover the whole of WA	The project aims to encourage pregnant Aboriginal women, new mothers and their families to create smoke-free environments to protect the developing foetus and newborn babies from exposure to harmful tobacco smoke. The project will develop a training package and resources for health workers to increase the knowledge among Indigenous populations of the effects of smoke and on the importance of quitting smoking and creating smoke-free environments for their children.	$477,469
Sunrise Health Service Aboriginal Corporation	The proposal covers the eastern area of Katherine, Northern Territory	The Clean Air – Healthy Lungs project aims to promote smoke-free messages, inform smokers of the dangers of smoking and help Indigenous people to quit smoking. This project will include the development of culturally appropriate education material for school aged children and young people. It aims to reduce the number of Indigenous people taking up smoking, and will provide information, support and resources to assist Indigenous people who are thinking about and deciding to quit smoking. Community-based workers will also be trained to deliver and maintain programs that are developed as part of the project. There is potential to engage up to 2,000 indigenous people in remote and very remote areas.	$1,000,000
Menzies School of Health Research	This project covers three areas; Melbourne, Darwin and Galiwin’ku, Elcho Island, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory	This program will target Indigenous young people and will include teachers, health workers, youth workers, health educators and parents. The project will involve the development and delivery of practical and culturally appropriate, interactive multimedia education resources. These will focus on reducing tobacco consumption and allow Indigenous young people to gather factual information, view role modelling by locally relevant peers, leave their personal stories via blogging, podcasting, video or audio digital storytelling, and learn about the effects of smoking and the benefits of cessation strategies.	$761,300
South Metropolitan Public Health Unit, South Metropolitan Area Health Service, Department of Health Western Australia	The target group of this project is the Rockingham/ Kwinana area of Western Australia.	The project aims to reduce smoking-related harm by increasing awareness of smoking as the principal cause of death and disease. It will increase the capacity of individuals, families and the community to change the culture of the community in regards to smoking, and encourage and assist smokers to quit smoking by using culturally diagnostic and brief intervention tools.	$742,061
Queensland Health (Woorabinda Multi Purpose Health Service)	Remote Central Queensland	The aim of this project is to initiate a program in the community of Woorabinda where individuals can quit smoking successfully. This project will offer counseling for up to 16 weeks, and collect baseline data on local sales and current smoking rates. This will include the number of patients who have successfully quit, and data collection on people who have dropped out of quit programs and the reasons for this. It will use radio advertising, and allow the recruitment of two part-time staff.	$44,500
Total			$10,739,000