ID-5184 Wonca Abstracts supplement L-Z 13-10-23 - Flipbook - Page 27
WONCA 2023 Supplement 2: WONCA 2023 abstracts (L–Z)
L
M
N
Advocating for change – strengthening rural health services
and systems
O
Dr Catherine Lees1,2,3, Danielle Couch4, Adj A/Prof Belinda O’Sullivan1,3, Matt Jones1
1
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Murray PHN, 2La Trobe University, 3Monash University, 4Victorian and Tasmanian Primary Health
Network Alliance
Aim
To discuss and apply a framework to the development of an advocacy plan to strengthen rural health
services and systems.
Contents
Health system advocacy activities relate to promoting system change, mobilising resources,
addressing health inequities, influencing policy reforms and policy implementation. Advocating
addresses structural determinants of health and promotes change which enables access, quality of
care and sustainable service delivery. However, to be effective, advocacy activity requires specific
principles and planning to achieve the deliberate pursuit of changes in policy, attitudes, behaviour and
decision making, usually in the public interest. This includes multilevel strategies which blend values,
evidence, timing and context. This interactive session will discuss and present an advocacy framework
and implementation plan for the purpose of strengthening rural health services and systems.
Participants will select from one of three identified key priority issues to implement the advocacy
framework. These priorities include: (1) describe the primary care service models that are effective in
different rural contexts to inform scalability; (2) advocating for high-quality integrated policies to support
a strong rural health system; and (3) communicating effective local solutions through exemplars and
case studies. Participants will work together to set the advocacy objectives, draft key messages
considering the context and other relevant issues, define the target audience and key advocacy
partners and determine the most appropriate advocacy strategy to achieve the desired outcome.
Goals
The goals of the interactive session are to build a shared understanding of advocacy for rural health
systems strengthening and to discuss the different types of advocacy and approaches to advocacy
that can be used to address key priority areas.
25