| The winning “Mencentives” team (from left) Janette Ellis,... The winning “Mencentives” team (from left) Janette Ellis, Rebecca Fairbrother (team leader), Melanie Bectel and Chujie (Stella) Shen | 
| Judges also commended the outstanding research and recommendations of... Judges also commended the outstanding research and recommendations of the team pictured above comprising (from left) Melanie Bryant, Haining Niu, Leina Wang, Chi Hong (Tom) Kong, Husayn Aly and Kim Worthy |
Students’ winning solutions to issue of men’s health
25 Feb 2008 | Bernie Goldie
Univative Illawarra, now in its fifth year, is a flagship program offered by UOW’s Careers Service which links teams of students with local employers to solve a workplace issue confronting an organisation.
This year’s Univative Illawarra (Summer) has just been conducted with teams being given an opportunity put to them by Australian Health Management.
Australian Health Management is Australia’s eighth largest private health insurer. It is a not-for-profit organisation, local to Wollongong and a leader in health management and disease prevention programs.
Each team worked on a task related to how we can best engage a male population in the area of men’s health and preventative health behaviours.
And the winning team of “Mencentives” was announced at a function held at Australian Health Management in Richardson Street, Wollongong.
The teams were judged by Tony Macri and Mick Donohoe from Australian Health Management’s Total Health and Michael Grainger from UOW’s Careers Service.
The teams were given a scenario of engaging the following workforce in preventative health behaviour: (1) About 5,000 blue collar workers in a manufacturing industry (2) a wide cultural diversity (3) a 24-hour seven-day-a-week environment and (4) average age is 49.
A key solution was to target the home and family to appeal to the worker as a provider who wants to be around for his children and grand children.
Some recommendations included:
• Key management employees and union officials leading by example
• Promotion via information sessions for small groups of employees with pamphlets and other forms of publicity
• Regular checks for cholesterol, blood pressure and body mass index and
• Healthy recipe cards to take home
Incentives to participate included:
• Competitions with prizes (such as tickets to sporting events) and
• The added value to their superannuation through a longer healthier working life
|
