Smoking is one of the prevalent health issues in Singaporean youths. Worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that tobacco kills one person every 10 seconds. About 90% of lung cancer deaths are caused by the act of smoking.
It is also a major risk factor for heart deficiency such as coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), all of which ranked among the major causes of hospitalisation and deaths in Singapore in 2008.
A decline in smoking prevalence will effectively control and minimize the exposure to these diseases.
Youth Health division has an important role to support youths by giving professional guidance and financial assistance.With the guidance and assistance,youths will be able to design activities and programmes to increase health awareness such as smoking.
Objective
The purpose of this profiling is the aims of YAH and its contribution to the increasing health awareness among youths. What are the strengths and opportunities of YAH ? How can it continue to reach out to a bigger pool of youths ? These are some of the scopes that will be addressed.
The role of YAH under the helm of Youth Health Division from Health Promotion Board does not end by merely talking about the reason youths have to stay healthy. There are some other factors that need to be taken into account such as effectiveness of YAH to market their vision to youths and the impact of YAH to youths,etc.
Bearing that in mind, I will give my personal reflection from what I observed of YAH and also I will contribute logical recommendations that are feasible to be of good use to YAH.
References:
1)Background of smoking by WHO, retrieved on the 23 July 2010, http://www.breathe.sg/uploadedFiles/LiveItUpDigitalToolKit.pdf
2)Youth Health Division Promoting Health Nutrition, retrieved on the 23 July 2010,
http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/APJCN/Volume17/vol17suppl.1/361-364W2-5.pdf
Overview of how Health Promotion Board launched the youth outreach programme as Youth Advolution for Health (YAH)
The Youth Advolution for Health (YAH ) is a pioneer programme spearheaded by Youth Health Division under Health Promotion Board (HPB). This youth outreach programme is targeted towards youth between 17 to 25 years old. The Youth Health Division team
aims for the programme to encourage YAH volunteers to promote health among other youths in Singapore especially their friends. This is accordance to the mission of YAH : Every youth is a health advocate.
YAH will be led by the YAH Executive Committee which forms the main group of youths who are passionate in advocating a healthy lifestyle among youths.Youths can sign up as YAH members who play an important role in supporting health events organized by YAH Exco and or other youth health awareness events that the HPB conducts.
YAH is the first programme under HPB that seeks to tap on the influence of projects led by youths .This will help youths to change their bad health intentions and behaviours that lead to
poor health management. They will be driven towards a positive good health intentions and good behavioural change on the different health issues.
As Health Advocates, students can embark on the different health issues such as a healthier balanced eating behaviour, adopting a regular physical activities lifestyle, adopting a smoke-free lifestyle, adopting good mental wellness, avoiding casual sex.
The word "Advolution" is created from the words 'Advocate' and 'Revolution'. The Youth Health Division team hopes that youths in this programme see themselves as
Advocates spreading the health messages to their friends and youths around them. They will also need to invent revolutionary and more creative methods to reach out to youths in spreading messages such as adopting good mental wellness.
For a start to increase health awareness,YAH will emphasise on encouraging a smoke-free lifestyle among youths. Youths will be given ample opportunity to take charge of health-related programmes within their community or for schools participation. The Health Promotion Board will support such effort in monetary funding and by providing professional expertise.In the next following years,HPB will introduce other peer-led promotion of other health issues under the leadership of YAH.
Youths can expect to advocate a healthier lifestyle, gain new skills and make rapport with a larger network of friends.
Reference:
1) Introduction of YAH, retrieved on 9 June 2010, http://www.hpb.gov.sg/programmes/article.aspx?id=3846
SWOT Analysis - Analyse the development of YAH towards youth outreach
Strengths
4.11 Pioneering youth health
4.12 Well-equipped with resources
4.13 Collaboration with Health Promotion Board
Weakness
4.21 Weak online presence
4.22 Lack of transparency
4.23 Lack of participative members
4.24 Lack of opportunities for YAH Advocates
Opportunities
4.31 Exploring Avenues for youths to face their challenges
4.32 Managing advocacy in key events
4.33 Collaborate with other Youth help groups
4.34 Sustain its online presence and support from members
Challenges
4.41 Publicity
4.42 Lack of resources
4.43 Low attraction pull to events
4.44 Mindset and mentality of the youths
4.1 Strengths
4.11 Pioneering youth health
Youth Advolution under Youth Division of HPB is a pioneering youth health. It had done a very successful youth outreach programme on the 25th December.
4.12 Well-equipped with resources
YAH is very well supported by HPB in terms of finances and logistics, including discussion spaces. This has been very instrumental in facilitation their planning for events.
4.13 Collaboration with Health Promotion Board
The collaboration contributes to efficiency for YAH to carry out its health advocacy activities.The dedication of supervising HPB staff brings the collaboration to new heights so that YAH is able to meet the objectives of being a youth health organisation. And also,it will help YAH to drive through the scope of policies that have to be adhered so that the health advocacy is able to become operational.
YAH has the backing of HPB and so they can collaborate with the staff easily. Youths in YAH's ideas on health advocacy would not be so restricted with the help of HPB.HPB is able to meet the needs of YAH, be it training, money to carry out advocacy plans or resources with regards to health.
The supportive advisers from Health promotion board have been supportive of certain projects and giving comments on the ideas from the YAH members.Since the staff from Health Promotion board is actually very supportive of what YAH is doing, they have been trying not to control and restrict their activities. Also, there are very supportive YAH advocates'efforts to assist YAH executive committee.
This will ensure that YAH executive committee is not burdened with all the work.
Weakness
4.21 Weak online presence
Graph 1: If Yes, how do you know about YAH?
All the 12 respondents out of the 35 total online respondents have heard of YAH through their friends.Only one out of the 12 respondents heard of YAH through website such facebook and its blog. This shows the weak online presence of the youth advocacy.
The weak online presence is due to a lack of frequent updates on Facebook and YAH blog. It is unappealing to our tech-savvy generation who prefers the up-to-date posts and pictures online.
4.22 Lack of transparency
HPB has not been very transparent about its goals and procedures for YAH members to conduct its operations, and communication channels within YAH executive committee can be further improved.
4.23 Lack of participative members
Although YAH boasts of about 100 members strong, the number of active members is very few. So it is challenging for the executive members to carry out advocacy plans with such a small amount of actively participating members.
With greater active members, it would not be difficult for us to source for manpower. A large pool of active members will ensure that they can be the ones advocating to their friends. This will increase outreach to other youths.
Without the active support of the members, it may be difficult to raise health awareness. Some do have other commitments like school and other projects to do and some are working.
4.24 Lack of opportunities for YAH Advocates
YAH advocates lacks the opportunities to really go out to advocate healthy lifestyle to the other youths. The YAH advocates do not contribute much to YAH except for maybe one or two once-off events.
4.3 Opportunities
4.31 Exploring Avenues for youths to face their challenges
They can explore the avenues to help youths face their challenges, provided they are successful in attracting youths to take their surveys at the events they hold, in the near future.
The YAH executive committee can only come up with meaningful projects if they understand the health issues or difficulties that youths are facing.
Knowing the manifestation of the problem is not enough, we also need to know their lifestyle habits and nurturing environment in order to figure out how best to help them.
4.32 Managing advocacy in key events
There are key events that YAH can carry out their advocacy.
The following events are Shine Youth Festival, National Skating and cycling event, Audible hearts peer support symposium and the upcoming public health screening in collaboration with NUS medical Society.
Setting up YAH booths at these events has made it possible for them to reach a greater youth audiences and they are also able to put across more impact and with less energy needed compared to organising an event by their own.
4.33 Collaborate with other Youth help groups
YAH has to work on building closer relationships with other Youth help groups, for example Community Health Assessment Team (CHAT) which could possibly feed them with more information on what youths need in order to improve their mental wellbeing, and what are the mental stressors that youths face.
YAH may need to get a co-Youth partner/(s) such as National Youth Council, MCYS and NYAA (national youth achievement award) to support its programme since it is for the youths. Some organisations will support YAH programmes such as Audible Hearts.
4.34 Sustain its online presence and support from members
The health advocacy group have to increase the youth awareness on health issues: through schools, online media, websites, blogs, facebook, twitter, certain events (not just YAH events) to sustain the interests of youth health among the youths.
They have to find ways to retain the members and keep in touch with other YAH members (who were once active) and still interested to promote youth health. Also, there is still an opening route for the advocacy group to get more members who may have the interest to promote youth health and able to contribute to promote youth health effectively.
Challenges
4.41 Publicity
Graph 2: Have you heard of the youth health advocacy group under HPB called Youth Advolution for Health (YAH)?
Total respondents: 35
Based on Graph 1, 12 out of the total 35 online survey respondents have heard of the youth advocacy group while 23 out of the total 35 online survey respondents have not heard of it.
Looking at the percentages below,
Graph 3 : Percentage of respondents who have/not heard of the youth health advocacy group
There are 31.4 % more respondents that have not heard of the youth health advocacy.This represents the general youths between age 17 to 25 years old.The percentage shows that the advocacy needs to improve on its publicity to reach out to even a bigger pool of youths.
There is a higher tendency for people to ignore the campaigns or advertisements set up by YAH at public places. Hence, YAH needs to find different platforms to reach out to different people as it is still unknown to youths.
4.42 Lack of resources
- collecting information about health issues that Youths face.
For example, they do not have a clear up to date database on which demographic (age years) of Youths are most prone to which type of health or mental issues.
The advocacy group aims to get a clearer picture through surveys, and are planning to hold events to attract people in crowded areas to take their surveys .
However, these events take professional planning and hence they need time to prepare for them.
4.43 Low attraction pull to events
Their challenge also includes making these events as youth-friendly and fun as possible.
They had to definitely have to incorporate some element of fun and vibrancy in their events to attract these youths and thus it may a bit costly, especially renting a timezone basketball machine during the Shine Mascot Parade.
However, they do not want the fun element to overwhelm the underlying health messages that the health advocacy group wants to bring about.
4.44 Mindset and mentality of the youths
The ultimate obstacle is when youths in Singapore are not so concerned about their health compared to other things. Youths are at an age whereby they just want to have fun possibly at the extent of their health. To them, they see health as something boring and not so meaningful.
Youngsters can be quite rebellious and stubborn, peer pressure and influences from people they know. Quite a lot of young people pick up smoking and drinking. It may be difficult to educate certain types of people
Youths are facing some kind of fatigue with regards to health messages, especially on the anti-smoking front. This is because of the constant bombardment of the relevant messages.
Most of the youths in Singapore do not really care about health and that they become "switched-off" when we mention the word 'health' to them. Also, there are very few platforms for YAH to step in to advocate health to other youths. Mostly these platforms are once-off and hence there's not much sustainability and the effect may not be there.
In addition, many youths in Singapore have very narrow views about what health is all about, they feel that whatever YAH is advocating is what they are supposed to do and not what they can achieve.
5. Personal Reflection
Graph 6: If Yes, how can a peer-support group like YAH impact positively on youths ?
option 1
Improve good pressure to manage health problems
option 2
Better coping strategies
option 3
Better understand the importance of good social relationships with your friends
option 4
Widen social support to manage our health problems
Option 5
Others
Graph 6 shows 8 out of 12 respondents who have heard of YAH feels that YAH can impact positively on youths by widening their social support to manage their health problems.
Graph 7: Percentages of respondents who vote for the different positive impacts of YAH.
The 67% of 12 respondents regards YAH as a social support for more ideas and support would be given to assist in improving our current state of life and to encourage more people to be healthy and keep away from any bad habits. With like minded youths who come together, youths would have more power and more motivation to carry out positive peer to peer support in terms of health.
Personally, I feel that YAH has given me various positive impacts.
It helps me improve good peer pressure among my friends as I spread the health messages effectively among them.
It helps me with coping strategies. I have to attend their gatherings to assist them with planning for the events.This will improve my time management skills to balance YAH,an external commitment with my studies.
As I mix with more friends from other institutions, it improves my social relationships with them as I learnt to increase my interaction which boosts my confidence.
6. Recommendations
Graph 4 : If No,how do you think YAH can improve on in terms of its publicity ?
Option 1
Hold publicity talks in educational institutions
Option 2
Set up booths for publicity in educational institutions
Option 3
Put up more public posters about itself
Option 4
Recruiting more volunteers from various educational institutions
Option 5
Others
Graph 4 shows how the 26 respondents,majority from respondents that have not heard of YAH and 3 others who have heard of YAH ,votes for different methods to boost publicity.
Looking at the percentages below,
Graph 5: Percentage of respondents who vote for the different methods YAH can improve on in terms of its publicity
Graph 5 shows that majority votes of 39% for more public posters about itself.This can be one of the effective methods. It creates awareness. For example, when a poster is being placed at a bus stop booth, commuters who are waiting for a bus can look at it while waiting for the bus to arrive, thus it promotes publicity. When there are more posters available along the streets for advertisements, people will gain awareness of what is the poster trying to say, and may trigger their interest.
It helps to increase visibility among the passer-bys.
To help improve the weak online presence, perhaps YAH should update more on health tips and interesting facts on health issues and not just only on YAH events, but it also can other events on health which can be supported by HPB.
It is not just focusing on Youth health but what will happen in the future if they do not take good care of their bodies as well as other people. For example more life videos/story such as Jacqueline Saburido (a burn victim who survived after the drunk driver knocked onto her friend's car) and World Heart Day 2010 campaign on people who can get hypertension at young age.
Also, to fill up the lack of opportunities for YAH advocates, YAH can improve by trying to get the advocates to organise small events in their own campus, because there are not really many advocates doing that currently. The direction of YAH can switch direction to maybe small events and sustainable measures. Most importantly, the other youths should see YAH as being powerful and able to create changes.
7. Appendix
7.1 Online Survey Questions
1. Have you heard of the youth health advocacy group under HPB called Youth Advolution for
Health (YAH)?
option 1 : Yes
option 2: No
2. If Yes, how do you know about YAH?
option 1 : Friends
option 2 : Radio
option 3: YAH website
option 4: Email
option 5: Others
3. If Yes,how can a peer-support group like YAH impact positively on youths ?
option 1: Improve good pressure to manage health problems
option 2: Better coping strategies
option 3:Better understand the importance of good social relationships with your friends
option 4: Widen social support to manage our health problems
option 5: Others
4. Give one reason for your chosen answer.
______________________________________________________________
5. If No, how do you think YAH can improve on in terms of its publicity ?
option 1 : Hold publicity talks in educational institutions
option 2: Set up booths for publicity in educational institutions
option 3: Put up more public posters about itself
option 4: Recruiting more volunteers from various educational institutions
option 5: Others
6.Give one reason for your chosen answer.
_______________________________________________________________
7.2 Email Interview questions to YAH Exco and its members
What are the challenges that YAH is facing to raise health awareness to youths in Singapore? Please elaborate.
What are the opportunities that YAH is facing amidst the challenges? Please elaborate.
What are the weaknesses of YAH so that it can improve as a better youth health programme? Please elaborate.
What are the strengths of YAH that brings it to what it is today? Please elaborate.
