title: Evaluation of the Healthy Village program in Kapit district, Sarawak, Malaysia.
abstract: Sarawak, Malaysia has a large population of ethnic minorities who live in longhouses in remote rural areas where poverty, non-communicable diseases, accidents and injuries, environmental hazards and communicable diseases all contribute to a lower quality of life than is possible to achieve in these regions. To address these issues and improve the quality of life for longhouse people, the Kapit Divisional Health Office implemented the World Health Organization's Healthy Village programme in 2000. An evaluation was undertaken in 2003 to determine physical and behavioural changes resulting from the programme. The main changes evaluated were those involving smoking habits, exercise habits, health screening, fire safety, environmental improvements and food preparation and hygiene. A qualitative evaluation was conducted using participant observation and key-informant interviews, focus groups and observation. Results indicate that the programme is inspiring changes in various behavioural and physical characteristics of the study population. It is clear that the Healthy Village programme is a widely accepted way of improving health outcomes in longhouses, and that it is succeeding in making beneficial health changes.
authors.affiliation: University of Sydney, Edward Ford Building, A27 NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kiyu
authors.forename: Ashley A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Steinkuehler
authors.forename: Jamilah
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hashim
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.forename: Peter F S
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Taylor
mesh_terms: D017144:Focus Groups; D006266:Health Education; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008296:Malaysia; D012423:Rural Health; D014944:World Health Organization