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<p>Assessing and understanding the health needs and abilities of university and college students is vital in creating healthy campus communities. Student learning is a central part of the higher education academic mission, and health promotion serves this mission by supporting students and creating healthy learning environments. Findings from various studies suggest that students entering the university setting put themselves at risk through unhealthy behaviours. Health science students are the future health professionals who will teach health promotion and disease prevention. The aim of this study was to determine and analyse health risk behaviours and health promoting behaviours among health science students at the University of the Western Cape. The study further aimed to identify the factors influencing these students' engagement in these risk behaviours.</p>

As a practitioner involved in the planning and development of educational activities in the field of public health, I have worked within many pedagogical traditions and program parameters. Through this work, I have experienced both subtle and radical shifts in the range of skills, knowledge and relationships required to collaboratively plan and evaluate educational work. In this professional and community-based landscape, competing and often overlapping models of education and evaluation have led to much conceptual confusion and ambiguity around narrowly defined notions of best practice, evidence and knowledge legitimacy. Drawing from Dorothy Smith’s (1999) standpoint theory from which my inquiry was developed as a result of my participation with colleagues in the field, I explore how three professional practice networks of learning and development practitioners speak of the skills, knowledge, relationships and worker identities in a changing field. This research seeks to explicate the kinds of informal and largely unarticulated knowledge that is produced through the changing contexts of work. This research maps the changing conditions of educational work through my own case stories of educational practice and uses these as a springboard for discussion among three diverse professional practice networks. The Story/Dialogue Method (S/D-M) developed by Labonte and Feather (1996), is a constructivist methodological approach that, in this application, structures group dialogue into reflective insights and theories about how educational work occurs in varied settings among different professional and community-based groups. A strong reliance on interpersonal skills was articulated by all three networks to build trust, assess individual and organisational learning needs, to build partnerships and to motivate learners. Skills were often described vaguely and summarised as a series of situational specific attributes. A valuing of reflexive, working knowledge as opposed to professional or discipline-based expertise was raised as an important aspect of partnership building and in negotiating program parameters. The need to build individual and organisational relationships through formal and informal encounters was cited as a series of legitimate yet often ‘behind the scenes’ professional practices. Aligning with the notion of worker identity described by Chappell, Rhodes, Solomon, Tennant and Yates (2003) as process, practitioners spoke of their identities as constructed and temporary, negotiated through newly emerging roles and changing relationships with peers and learners. This study suggests that evidence-based practice is a contested term drawing its meanings from multiple theoretical and pedagogical traditions including that of intuition. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, evidence guiding educational approaches is viewed as a pragmatic and eclectic mix of tools stored to be adapted for use in new ways. Additionally, this study concludes that all participants (including myself) regard educational practice as a collaborative and continually negotiated endeavour.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Hong Kong has a population of more than seven million people which since 1995 has been growing by 150 immigrants per day from Mainland China. Although migrants from Mainland China do share some similar cultures with their counterparts in Hong Kong, the concept of health and actions they take to maintain their health are different. This study aims to investigate the association between socio-economic factors, the settlement period since migration and the health status of migrant women from China to Hong Kong and their utilization of health care facilities. This research further aims to investigate any implications for the practice of health promotion and prevention-related activities among these women and compares these results with those of Chinese women in Mainland China. A total of four hundred women between the ages of 20 and 50 years were selected for this study, two hundred women who had migrated from Mainland China to Hong Kong and two hundred women still resident in Mainland China. Participants in China were selected from Guangzhou, Guangdong,Shanghai, and Xiamen, these being the more common areas of origin of the immigrant women in Hong Kong. The two cross-sectional surveys were carried out to collect comparable data on the health status for both the groups, their utilization of health care services, their understanding of health promotion and prevention, and their actual health promotion behaviour. The results show that nearly half of the immigrant women from Mainland China had no further education beyond primary school (51%) and that a greater majority of them were unemployed (84%). A surprising 73% of the migrant women had more than two children despite most belonging in the lowest income group (total family income of below HK$15,000k) per month. While younger migrants were generally shown to be healthier, most immigrant women reported their health as being ‘much worse’ than before migration. The single-most significant predictor for immigrant women’s physical health was the number of children they had, while for women in Mainland China, the significant predictor was age. Regarding stress, among immigrant women having more children and being unemployed were significant predictors of increased stress; while for women in Mainland China living in rented private rooms or units, having a higher number of children, low family income, and living with their extended family were significant predictors. Regarding health service utilization, immigrant women living on public or private estates were significantly more likely to use health care services than those living in temporary housing or shelters; and the more educated immigrant women were, the more they used health care services. For women in Mainland China, the higher the family income and the larger the family household, the more they used health care services. Despite 95% of the immigrant women feeling they could do more to improve their health status, only 22% of them reported having performed health promotion and preventative strategies since relocating to Hong Kong. Being Cantonese-speaking and living in a family household were significant predictors for immigrant women to perform health promotion and preventative activities. Results for participants in Mainland China show that while a smaller number of these women, 85 % felt they could be doing more, 61.5% of them were already performing health promotion and preventative strategies to improve their health status. A significant predictor for women in Mainland China was total family income; the higher the family income, the more health promotion activities were performed. The findings of this study should greatly assist both government and non-government organizations in Hong Kong and elsewhere not only in providing more effective health care services for migrant women from Mainland China but also in informing the public health policies and planning of health care provision.

As a practitioner involved in the planning and development of educational activities in the field of public health, I have worked within many pedagogical traditions and program parameters. Through this work, I have experienced both subtle and radical shifts in the range of skills, knowledge and relationships required to collaboratively plan and evaluate educational work. In this professional and community-based landscape, competing and often overlapping models of education and evaluation have led to much conceptual confusion and ambiguity around narrowly defined notions of best practice, evidence and knowledge legitimacy. Drawing from Dorothy Smith’s (1999) standpoint theory from which my inquiry was developed as a result of my participation with colleagues in the field, I explore how three professional practice networks of learning and development practitioners speak of the skills, knowledge, relationships and worker identities in a changing field. This research seeks to explicate the kinds of informal and largely unarticulated knowledge that is produced through the changing contexts of work. This research maps the changing conditions of educational work through my own case stories of educational practice and uses these as a springboard for discussion among three diverse professional practice networks. The Story/Dialogue Method (S/D-M) developed by Labonte and Feather (1996), is a constructivist methodological approach that, in this application, structures group dialogue into reflective insights and theories about how educational work occurs in varied settings among different professional and community-based groups. A strong reliance on interpersonal skills was articulated by all three networks to build trust, assess individual and organisational learning needs, to build partnerships and to motivate learners. Skills were often described vaguely and summarised as a series of situational specific attributes. A valuing of reflexive, working knowledge as opposed to professional or discipline-based expertise was raised as an important aspect of partnership building and in negotiating program parameters. The need to build individual and organisational relationships through formal and informal encounters was cited as a series of legitimate yet often ‘behind the scenes’ professional practices. Aligning with the notion of worker identity described by Chappell, Rhodes, Solomon, Tennant and Yates (2003) as process, practitioners spoke of their identities as constructed and temporary, negotiated through newly emerging roles and changing relationships with peers and learners. This study suggests that evidence-based practice is a contested term drawing its meanings from multiple theoretical and pedagogical traditions including that of intuition. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, evidence guiding educational approaches is viewed as a pragmatic and eclectic mix of tools stored to be adapted for use in new ways. Additionally, this study concludes that all participants (including myself) regard educational practice as a collaborative and continually negotiated endeavour.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 30-31).

Thesis (PhD (Organisational Behaviour))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (MAppSc) -- Auckland University of Technology, 2004. / Also held in print (217 leaves, ill., 30 cm.) in Wellesley Theses Collection (T 613.70993 CUM)

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2007. / Continuous pagination. Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Medical Research Council Social and Public Sciences Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow, 2007. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Project (M.S. Ed.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-139). Also available via the Internet.