PP6 – Health promotion and preventive care

Many health conditions can be avoided, or their impact reduced, by creating illness prevention and preventive care systems and environments⁽³⁵⁾. Health promotion enables people to increase their control over, and improve, their health⁽³⁶⁾.

By sharing information about environmental factors that can influence health, general practices can support patients in making informed decisions to improve their health outcomes and benefit the environment.

To provide patients with relevant information about health promotion, illness prevention and preventive care, the practice could:

• review the practice’s patient population and their healthcare needs, and provide relevant specific information
• in practice information, include health promotion material (for example, about bowel screening, kidney health checks, diabetes and infectious diseases)
• provide a directory of local, applicable and accessible services and businesses that offer programs to help patients modify their lifestyle
• refer patients to reputable websites and platforms that can help patients find health care services
• have culturally specific health information (for example, about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health) in the practice
• provide information about how to seek help for family, domestic and sexual violence, such as QR codes or links to recognised national or local support services. This information could also be provided in discreet locations such as toilet areas.

Health literacy has an important role in enabling effective partnerships between practitioners and patients. For partnerships to work, everyone involved needs to be able to give, receive, interpret and act on information such as treatment options and plans.

Assessing the health literacy of patients and then providing them with appropriate information based on that assessment can help to increase a patient’s awareness and understanding of their diagnosis, condition, treatment options and the possible risks or side effects of medications or treatments.

To improve a patient’s health literacy, practitioners could:

• recognise the patient’s needs and preferences and tailor communication accordingly
• assume that most people will have difficulty understanding complex health information and concepts
• provide health information using words that the patient understands and without rushing through it
• use multiple forms of communication to confirm that information has been delivered and understood
• give the patient targeted information (for example, leaflets) telling them where they can access targeted information (for example, websites and online support groups)
• encourage the patient, carer and other relevant parties to say if they have difficulty understanding the information
• use proven methods of informing patients about the risks of treatment options.

The practice needs to share information about environmental issues with patients by using resources that relate to their healthcare. This can potentially improve the safety and quality of the healthcare patients receive from the practice. The practice could:

• provide patients with information that explains the importance of reducing waste, conserving energy, and the benefits of using environmentally friendly products
• inform patients about how to minimise the environmental impact of medications, such as returning unused drugs to a pharmacy so they can be properly destroyed
• provide information to consumers about managing the impact of climate change on their health, including extreme heat. For example, in the waiting area, the practice could display posters such as the RACGP’s Climate change and health practice posters and links to digital resources  
• include sustainability-related topics when interacting with patients.

For more information, see the RACGP’s Greening up: Environmental sustainability in general practice