This thesis presents a study of the incidence of
hypercholesterolaemia in a 1988 sample of male personnel
from the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). The thesis
defines hypercholesterolaemia as a plasma total cholesterol
level in excess of the risk threshold promulgated by the
National Heart Foundation of Australia (NHF). Since 1981,
RAAF personnel have been subjected to a series of regular
physical and physiological examinations, including a
comprehensive blood lipd profile, as part of a preventive
approach to reducing the incidence of coronary heart disease
in the Service.
The study presents data on the extent of
hypercholesterolaemia in the RAAF and illustrates the spread
of the condition through various age cohorts. In excess of
40% of the RAAF personnel studied had total cholesterol
levels in excess of the NHF "increased risk" threshold with
the prevalence varying from 11.8% of personnel aged 20-24
years to some 64% of personnel older than 49 years. The
increase in total cholesterol level with increasing age is
statistically significant.
The study compares these data with previously published
observations on certain motivational characteristics of
military communities, with a view to providing an evaluation
of the structure of the RAAF Health Promotion Programme as a
lifestyle based educational initiative. The data are further
compared with data from two conceptually similar studies of
male personnel in the United States armed forces. These
comparisons suggest that the age related frequency of
educational intervention which characterized the 1988 RAAF
programme may well have been inappropriate for optimal
effect.
The study further utilizes a tabular (matrix) analysis of a
number of educational strategies to identify several
preferred option(s) for programme design in the RAAF
community. The analysis suggests that the present mode of
educational intervention may also be inappropriate for
optimal effect (when addressing the 1988 RAAF population at
least).
The study concludes with the presentation of a series of
recommendations aimed fundamentally at a redesign of the
cholesterol monitoring component of the RAAF Health
Promotion Programme. The study recommends, however, that
given the multifactorial nature of coronary heart disease
risk, the cholesterol monitoring component of the programme
should not be redesigned in isolation. Instead, the findings
of this study suggest that a more wide-ranging study of the
educational basis for the client interface to the RAAF
Health Promotion Programme is warranted.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219453 |
| Date | January 1990 |
| Creators | White, Peter A., n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Peter A. White |
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