HMS, HAG 2022 HSC 31b

Overview Statement

• Enabling, mediating and advocating processes interact to create comprehensive support systems that address root causes of health disadvantage.
• Key relationships include skill development empowerment, stakeholder collaboration, and systemic change advocacy.

Enabling and Mediating Relationship

• Enabling processes directly empower disadvantaged groups by building health literacy and self-management skills for chronic conditions.
• This aligns with mediating processes which facilitate collaboration between health services, community organisations and disadvantaged populations.
• For example, diabetes education programs for Aboriginal communities enable individuals to manage blood glucose, while mediating processes bring together traditional healers and medical practitioners.
• This relationship results in culturally appropriate care that respects traditional knowledge while incorporating medical expertise.
• The interaction means sustainable improvements occur because communities develop internal capacity while maintaining external professional support.
• Mediating processes ensure different stakeholders work toward common health goals rather than competing approaches.

Advocating and System Change Relationship

• Advocating processes influence policy makers and healthcare systems to remove structural barriers that perpetuate health inequities.
• Advocacy complements enabling processes by creating environments where newly developed skills can be effectively utilised.
• For instance, advocacy for bulk-billing clinics in disadvantaged areas enables low-income families to use health literacy skills without financial barriers.
• The significance is that individual empowerment becomes meaningless without systemic change to support improved health behaviours.
• Advocacy leads to legislative changes like improved disability access requirements that complement individual skill development programs.
• Thus demonstrating how structural change amplifies the impact of personal empowerment initiatives.

Implications and Synthesis

• These interconnected processes create sustainable change because they address both individual capacity and environmental barriers simultaneously.
• The pattern shows that isolated approaches fail while integrated enabling, mediating and advocating strategies produce lasting health improvements.
• Therefore, sustainable health improvements for disadvantaged groups depend on coordinated processes that empower individuals, facilitate collaboration, and transform systems.