Indigenous Men Taking Their Rightful Place in Society?: a participatory action research process.

男子保健团体日益被视为改善健康和福祉的重要战略，特别是在土著社区。然而，很难在文献中找到系统的文档和评估这些举措。自2001年8月以来，我们一直在促进和分析一项参与性行动研究进程，该进程旨在支持凯恩斯（昆士兰北部）附近农村土著社区Yarrabah的男子健康小组成员对影响其健康和福祉的因素进行更大的控制和负责。PAR进程提供了初步证据，表明土著环境中男子健康团体的发展可以导致社会和行为的改变，PAR可能是促进社会变革的有用工具。目前的建议是学术伙伴和男子团体领导之间的一项联合倡议，除其他外，建议：a)巩固和扩大与Yarrabah男子健康团体及其社区成员的现有PAR倡议；b)在昆士兰州北部的另一个社区调整和试点PAR模式；c)在两个地点进行系统的比较评价，以确定男性健康小组作为促进健康战略的中长期有用性，特别是在偏远的农村土著环境中。这些类型的微观研究对土著环境中如何认识和处理社区发展具有重要意义。

Men's health groups are increasingly being accepted as important strategies in improving health and wellbeing, especially in Indigenous communities. However, it is hard to find systematic documentation and evaluation of such initiatives in the literature. Since August 2001, we have been facilitating and analysing a Participatory Action Research (PAR) process designed to support members of a men's health group in Yarrabah, a rural Aboriginal community near Cairns (north Queensland), take greater control and responsibility for the factors influencing their health and wellbeing. The PAR process is providing initial evidence indicating that the development of men's health groups in Indigenous settings can lead to social and behavioural change and that PAR is potentially a useful tool in working towards social change. The current proposal is a joint initiative between the academic partners and the men's group leadership and proposes among other things to: a) consolidate and extend the existing PAR initiative with members of the Yarrabah Men's Health Group and their community; b) adapt and pilot the PAR model in another north Queensland community; and c) undertake a systematic and comparative evaluation across the two sites to determine the medium -long term usefulness of men's health groups as health promotion strategies especially in rural-remote Indigenous settings. These types of micro-level studies have important implications for the way community development is perceived and approached in Indigenous settings.