The Health and Effect of Health Empowerment Programmes Among Families in Tung Chung

Kerry Group Kuok Foundation Limited (KGKF) has initiated the Trekkers Family Project that aims to enable low-income families to develop their full potentials by providing support and opportunities in education, employment, environmental harmony and health. Health is an essential component to enable a person to develop his/her full potential. This study looks into one of the key elements, health, of members of low-income families and the effect of health education, health enablement and mutual health support on health and social outcomes. It is a cohort study of around 800 subjects from 200 families of the Trekkers Family Project, and around 800 subjects not included in the Trekkers Family Project in Hong Kong, recruited base on pre-defined inclusion criteria. Health empowerment interventions consisting of three inter-related programmes, namely, the Health Literacy, the Self-care Enablement, and the Health Ambassador Programmes.

The Health Literacy Programme aims to improve the knowledge on health and health services in order to promote health, prevent disease, and the proper use of services. It consists of four seminars per year on common health problems, mental health and cognitive health, etc.

The Self-Care Enablement Programme is to enable participants to keep themselves healthy, to build up self-efficacy and proper help-seeking skills, and to generate a spirit of mutual support among families. Two programmes will be delivered yearly, each with six 2.5 hour workshops facilitated by professional and lay leaders.

The Health Ambassador Programme aims to train up a group of adults recruited from the Trekkers families to act as a lay-advisor to other families on health issues. Participants who have completed the Health Literacy and Self-care Enablement programme will be given priority to take part in the Health Ambassador training programme.

The outcome measures are health enablement, health status, health-related quality of life, life style, cardiovascular risk factors, illnesses rates, and health service utilization pattern. All subjects in the cohort study will be surveyed on enrolment, and then yearly for 5 years. An age-gender appropriate health assessment will be carried out at baseline and at the end of five years for each subject. Changes in the outcomes will be evaluated and compared between groups. The impact of the health intervention programmes will be assessed.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

1. Intervention group (inclusion criteria of Trekkers Families)

   1. Participants included must be part of a family whom all family members are usual residents in Tung Chung;
   2. The family must have at least one family member working full-time or part-time;
   3. The family household income does not exceed 75% of monthly median income of Hong Kong;
   4. At least one child studying Primary 1,2 or 3 at the time of recruitment; and
   5. At least one adult family member must be willing to participate in the long-term follow up study.
   6. Only fathers, mothers and children aged 6 or above will be included in this study.
2. Control group

   1. Participants included must be part of a family whom all family members are usual residents in Hong Kong;
   2. The family household income does not exceed 75% of monthly median income of Hong Kong;
   3. At least one child studying Primary 1, 2 or 3 at the time of recruitment;
   4. Only fathers, mothers and children aged 6 or above will be included in this study.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. None of the family member was able to understand or communicate in Chinese language,
2. The family is receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA),
3. Refuse to give consent.