Glossary
Here are definitions for some key words and terms you might come across in the Community Health Action Pack. These words appear in bold type so, if you see one, you can refer back to the glossary to find out what it means.
| Activity | Something you are going to do as part of your project. For example, start a women’s walking club. |
| Cancer | An abnormal and uncontrolled growth of cells in the body and the ability of these cells to spread (metastasise) to other parts of the body. Cancer is not just one disease, but a large group of almost 100 diseases. Some types of cancer include breast cancer, bowel cancer and lung cancer. |
| Chronic disease | Chronic diseases are sicknesses that generally last for a long time and slowly get worse. They include heart disease, diabetes, stroke, renal (kidney) disease, cancer and some respiratory diseases. |
| Circulatory or cardiovascular disease | Sickness of the heart or blood vessels (the veins and arteries that carry blood around our bodies). |
| Communication outlets | The things you use to get your health messages to people. They include people you know (eg. doctors, family members, mothers, elders, friends), groups (eg. men’s gatherings, school meetings, council meetings), media (eg. newspapers, radio, television), and the internet and other interactive digital media (eg. websites, social media, CD –ROMS). |
| Community involvement | Getting the community interested in planning and doing health activities with you. |
| Diabetes | A sickness that happens when people have too much sugar in their blood. This is because your insulin doesn’t work properly, so sugar from your food stays in your blood and you feel tired and weak. Diabetes causes serious problems with our heart and blood vessels, kidneys, eyes and feet. |
| Disease | Illness/sickness |
| Evaluation | A way to find out what has worked and what hasn’t worked, what activities need to keep going, and if it would be better to change some things next time. |
| Goal | The overall health improvement that you want to get. For example: to get people in the community to exercise more or to eat better food. Reaching your goal means that you have been successful in what you set out to achieve. |
| Health checks | Another name for visiting the doctor or nurse for a check-up. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people(s) can have free health checks that will help them to prevent, treat and manage sickness. |
| Health promotion | Helping people and communities to live a healthier life. Sending healthy messages through a variety of resources or channels. |
| Impact evaluation | Involves assessing or measuring the effects of a program. |
| Kidney disease | Sickness that affects the part of the body (kidneys) that removes waste and excess water from the blood through our urine (pee). Kidney disease is often referred to as renal disease and is a risk factor for diabetes. |
| Life expectancy | The number of years a person is likely to live. |
| Media | Newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the internet are all forms of media. |
| Message/key message | The main thing you want your target audience to know and the main thing you will promote through your project. For example: • Quitting smoking can help stop your kids, your family and you from getting sick • Eating fresh fruit and vegetables can help stop you getting sick • Walking regularly can help make you strong and healthy. |
| Objective | The things that you need to do to reach your goal. For example: • By the end of the project, the community store will stock fresh fruit and vegetables • By the end of the year, 50 per cent of adults in the community will know what causes diabetes • By the end of the year, the number of people in the community getting regular exercise will have increased from 100 to 150. You can have more than one objective for each project. |
| Outcome evaluation | Involves assessing or measuring the effects of a program. For example, have the program objectives been achieved? |
| Preventive health | Taking action to help prevent people getting sick. |
| Prevention | Stopping a health problem before it begins or better managing a health problem to stop it getting worse. |
| Primary health care services | Health services for people in the community (and not people in hospital) provided by doctors, as well as by nurses, Aboriginal Health Workers, dentists, community pharmacists and other health care professionals such as dietitians and physiotherapists. This includes services for people who are sick, and services to help people avoid getting sick. |
| Research | Research describes the process of finding out or getting information. Most people do informal research in their everyday lives. For example: when it’s time to visit your family, you might find out how much it costs to travel, what your family will want you to bring and how many people will be going, etc. |
| Process evaluation | Involves assessing or measuring the activities in a program and the quality of a program. |
| Resources | Things that you need to help you run your project, make your message stronger and help people do the right things for their health. Resources can be people, information materials such as posters, videos and products (eg. T-shirts with health messages) or equipment (eg. basketballs). |
| Respiratory diseases | Sickness of the lungs, other parts of the respiratory system and the nerves and muscles that help us breathe. This type of sickness can make breathing difficult and the oxygen levels in our blood can drop lower than normal. |
| Risk factor | Something that makes you more likely to get sick. Sometimes, this risk comes from something you do. For example, if you smoke you are more likely to get heart disease, so smoking is a risk factor for heart disease. |
| Social marketing | An activity that aims to change people’s behaviour to improve their health and/or welfare, or that of whole communities. |
| Social media | Computer-based systems which allow users to have two-way communication and exchange information through text/words, sound, video and images. Some examples of social media are Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. |
| Stakeholder | A person, group or organisation who may have an interest and/or role to play in a project, but who are not running the project. Local government, the community store or community members may all be stakeholders for a particular project. |
| Target audience | The people you want to reach with your health messages. For example: • Women with children • Adult men who smoke • Primary school-aged children • Community leaders |
| Wellbeing | A state of having health, happiness and quality of life. |
CULTURAL PROTOCOL AND TERMINOLOGY
The term ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people(s)’ is used throughout this document where it refers to Australian people(s) who are of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander descent.
The term ‘Indigenous’ or ‘Indigenous Australian’ is used where it is in direct reference to the title of a program, project or document.