Community events boost LMP referrals

Towards the end of 2010, CSGPN ran two successful community events to raise awareness of type 2 diabetes risk.

On 3 December 2010 we, and the Aboriginal Health Team, were at the Indigenous Health Expo, held at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in Redfern. As part of our health promotion activities, we distributed information to community groups and allied health professionals around immunisation, Aboriginal health and chronic disease management.

We collaborated with the Jimmy Little Foundation and printed children’s Thumbs Up! t-shirts. Given as early Christmas gifts, the t-shirts were a huge hit and each person who completed a diabetes screening tool or received diabetes prevention information went away with their thumbs up and a big smile.

Consequently, the AUSDRISK tool is now available on the Jimmy Little Foundation website where you can also find out more about the Thumbs Up! Good Tucker - Long Life campaign www.jlf.org.au

Tumblong Park, Darling Harbour was the venue for the Sydney Egyptian Festival. Complete with camel rides, an enormous Sphinx and tours of King Tut’s Tomb, the Egyptian Festival provided an excellent opportunity to screen members of the Middle Eastern community.

Once again, the Chronic Disease Management team was there in force. We arranged for AGPN Community Service Announcements to be displayed on the giant screen throughout the day. The ads were looped every eight minutes and encouraged visitors to take part in diabetes screening at the CSGPN stall.

The team was kept very busy. Apart from taking a break for the occasional camel ride, we screened over 50 people and disseminated diabetes and other health information to over 100 community members.

Our Arabic-speaking GPs have referred 13 participants to attend the Lakemba program in February 2011. This program will be presented in Arabic using our newly translated materials.

Future Directions
In 2011, the LMP team will be providing programs in both Arabic and Mandarin. We also have plans for Reset Your Life translation into Vietnamese and collaboration with the Bankstown DGP in screening members of the Vietnamese community. Also look out for us at the “New Year Festival” at Fairfield Showgrounds on 5 and 6 of February.