Task:
You are an intern working for a non-government health organisation in Australia to gain work experience during your undergraduate degree. Your supervisor has asked you to draw on recent data surrounding a topical health behaviour to create a health infographic that can be used with both government stakeholders and the general public. The aim of the infographic is to inform your audience of:
- the health behaviour (what it is/ a definition) and
- the extent of the problem of the chosen health behaviour.
Your infographic must be accompanied by a report that provides a clear justification outlining the source of your data and a critical summary of the quality of the data used. For example, how do we know the data are valid and reliable? How do we know that the data is relevant for the target population?
Your supervisor has requested an infographic that relates to a significant burden to the health of Australians. Example health behaviour topics include:
- Sedentary behaviour
- A specific dietary behaviour (e.g. fruit and/or vegetable consumption; consuming sweetened drinks)
- Tobacco smoking
- Alcohol use or an alcohol-related harmful behaviour (e.g. binge drinking; alcohol-associated violence; alcohol-associated sexual assault; drink driving)
- Road-related harmful behaviour (e.g. no seatbelt use; speeding; drink driving)
You may check with your lecturer if you choose an alternative. You may choose the same health behaviour for Task 3.
Be sure to specify a specific target population in your justification, for example you might like to focus on young people attending Schoolies week or Queenslanders living in rural areas or working-aged Australians. The data used should apply to the target population. You should select a target population based on their engagement or likely engagement in the chosen health behaviour.
When constructing your response, you should consider the following elements:
| Elements: | Detail: |
| Purpose | To educate and inform (Part A: Infographic)
To critically appraise research, specifically data collected (Part B: Written Justification Report) |
| Text type | Infographic – poster/postcard medium (Part A)
Written report (Part B) |
| Audience and your role | Your role: Health communication intern working for a non-government organisation
Audience: Government stakeholders and general public |
| Conditions | Individual task
Part A: Infographic Word count: One page Part B: Written Justification Report Word count: 1000 words Referencing style: APA 6th edition |
| Criteria
|
1. Explain the role of health behaviours in chronic disease and injury prevention and management
2. Describe the main patterns of prevalence, social distribution and trends in health behaviours and explain the relevance of such patterns for health promotion practice 3. Critically appraise the quality of behavioural measurement methods 4. Critically analyse published research on health behaviours and synthesise it to form a persuasive rationale for health promotion practice 6. Demonstrate effective written and visual communication skills |
Getting started:
- Select a health issue you would like to investigate and identify a relevant non-government health organisation
- Conduct wider reading in relation to current epidemiological data pertaining to your selected health behaviour
- Review notes and information from Lectures
- Infographic tutorials are available at Lynda.com (available free through the UQ Library)
- Consider some of the following to construct your infographic (or simply use an existing infographic template):
- Canva canva.com
- Google Drawings
- Infogram https://infogram.com
- Visme visme.co
- Easelly easel.ly
- Visually https://visual.ly
- Piktochart https://piktochart.com/
- Refer to the ‘Justification’ template provided on Blackboard to help structure the justification report of your infographic.
- An infographic should be relevant, easy to follow, succinct
- Report considerations (You may wish to consider some of the following when describing and analysing the quality of the data you have used. You do not need to necessarily cover them all, it will depend on the nature of the data you are using):
- Sample – the degree to which they are representative, the size of the sample
- Measures – reliability, validity
- Procedure – study design, risk of bias, independence
