caa a22 4500 397547587 CHVBK 20180308164742.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161202e199609 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1093/heapro/11.3.203 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)oxford-10.1093/heapro/11.3.203 Meeting the challenge of falls prevention at the population level: a community-based intervention with older people in Australia [Elektronische Daten] [ANDREW HAHN, ERIC VAN BEURDEN, ANNE KEMPTON, TIM SLADDEN, EVERALD GARNER] Older people form a large and growing segment of our population, experience disproportionately more illness and require more use of health services than any other group. This differential is largely due to falls, which are the leading cause of injury for those aged 65 plus. The North Coast ‘Stay On Your Feet' programme is a 4-year multi-strategic, community-based intervention to address this problem among 80000 older residents. This paper presents key results of the first 18 months of the programme. It demonstrates potential achievements of this type of intervention and examines some barriers. Programme effect was measured quasi-experimentally by monitoring indicators of awareness, knowledge, attitudes and risk factors via a telephone survey with random cohorts in intervention and control areas. After allowing for baseline covariates, the intervention was significantly associated with: raised awareness both of the problem of falling and its preventability; improved knowledge of the risk factors for falling; and a higher self-rated risk of falling. As expected, there is as yet no population change in falls rate. Initial changes shown in risk factors for falling raise interesting challenges. A reduction in physical activity may indicate that older people, now more aware of risk, are being advised to restrict their activities. An increase in proportion of older people taking medications which may cause unsteadiness also presents a challenge. However, a concomitant decrease in reported dizziness may indicate that medications are now better managed. This evaluation shows that in 18 months, a well-funded and managed community-based falls prevention programme can achieve changes in awareness, knowledge and attitudes but that continued intervention is required to substantially change behavioural risk factor profiles and the likelihood of an older person falling. © Oxford University Press Original papers nationallicence aged nationallicence health promotion nationallicence injury nationallicence risk factors nationallicence HAHN ANDREW North Coast Public Health Unit, New South Wales Health Department, Australia aut BEURDEN ERIC VAN North Coast Public Health Unit, New South Wales Health Department, Australia aut KEMPTON ANNE North Coast Public Health Unit, New South Wales Health Department, Australia aut SLADDEN TIM North Coast Public Health Unit, New South Wales Health Department, Australia aut GARNER EVERALD North Coast Public Health Unit, New South Wales Health Department, Australia aut Health Promotion International Oxford University Press 11/3(1996-09), 203-211 0957-4824 11:3<203 1996 11 heapro https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/11.3.203 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/11.3.203 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- HAHN ANDREW North Coast Public Health Unit, New South Wales Health Department, Australia aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- BEURDEN ERIC VAN North Coast Public Health Unit, New South Wales Health Department, Australia aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- KEMPTON ANNE North Coast Public Health Unit, New South Wales Health Department, Australia aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- SLADDEN TIM North Coast Public Health Unit, New South Wales Health Department, Australia aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- GARNER EVERALD North Coast Public Health Unit, New South Wales Health Department, Australia aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Health Promotion International Oxford University Press 11/3(1996-09), 203-211 0957-4824 11:3<203 1996 11 heapro Metadata rights reserved CC BY-NC-4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-oxford