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

男子健康团体越来越被接受为改善健康和福祉的重要战略，特别是在土著社区。然而，在文献中很难找到对这些举措的系统记录和评价。自2001年8月以来，我们一直在促进和分析一项干预性行动研究（PAR）进程，该进程旨在支持Yarrabah（凯恩斯（北昆士兰州）附近的一个农村土著社区）男子健康团体的成员，对影响其健康和福祉的因素进行更大的控制并承担更大的责任。该进程提供的初步证据表明，在土著环境中发展男子保健团体可以导致社会和行为变化，该进程可能是努力实现社会变革的有用工具。目前的提案是学术合作伙伴和男子团体领导层之间的一项联合倡议，除其他事项外，还建议：a）与Yarrabah男子健康团体及其社区的成员巩固和扩大现有的PAR倡议; B）在另一个北昆士兰州社区调整和试点PAR模式;对两个地点进行系统的比较性评价，以确定男子健康小组作为健康促进战略的中长期效用，特别是在偏远农村土著环境中。这些类型的微观层面的研究有重要的影响，社区发展的方式被认为是在土著设置和处理。

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.