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Newsletter EHLE, Number 2, September 2009
THEME: A social network
Welcome to the 2nd newsletter of the EHLE project!
In this newsletter we will provide an update on the project status, give insight into our project agenda and give you information on the theme of this newsletter: a social network.
Project status
During the last month we have worked on the development of the handbook and Italy and France have organised some pilot trainings.
1) Handbook. A training pack, that includes a training toolbox and concept were developed in the previous months. In July and August a handbook was developed that provides detailed information on the project, the training concept and toolbox and a complete reference list of used scientific materials. The handbook is a guide to using the training pack produced by the EHLE Project. The handbook is aimed at all those in the health and social fields who, during their work, come into contact and interact with older people in order to promote their good health and social wellbeing. By using the handbook, these people can read how to use the training pack.
2) Pilot trainings in Italy and France
2nd Pilot training Italy - Padova - 10 June 2009
The second edition of the pilot training took place in Padova on June 10th. The 28 participants were health professionals (physicians, nurses and pharmacists) from the province of Padova, Venice and Treviso. The course, lasting 8.30 hours, intense and demanding, included six modules with theoretical and practical parts on smoking, physical activity, nutrition, use of medications, emotional health and patient communication. Participants enjoyed mostly the interactive and practical parts and underlined the importance of role-playing and rehearsing to improve their ability to communicate with older persons. Participants from Italy also suggested splitting the course in two half-days to improve attention and to facilitate participation of health professionals with busy agendas. The course evaluation was very positive and all participants were willing to recommend the training to their colleagues.
Pilot training France - Caen - 10 September 2009
The 2nd pilot training took place in Caen on 10th of September 2009. We had around 26 participants coming from the region Normandie. Participants were local elected representatives (from cities and municipalities) but also executive managers of local social and welfare units (CCAS). The meeting was a successful one and feedback we got from participants was that the training was an interesting one. Two days should have been better to have a better overview of all themes. Depending also on the target group of participants, tools have to be simplified and include more role play and exchanges. In France, the training should be really useful for home care services employees (housekeeping, help on daily life activities), to improve their knowledge on the social environment of elderly people and their background and the way to communicate in a better way, but also to reinforce the knowledge of the risks encountered by elderly people and how to motivate to change.
Project agenda:
- Activities: during the next months we will finalize all materials and translate them into the languages of the project partners (Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch). We will also evaluate the project by means of an evaluation plan. This might help other projects to see what was of high quality in this project and what can be improved.
- Meetings:
- 23 and 24 September: project meeting in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
- 11, 12 and 13 November: final meeting in Venice, Italy
A SOCIAL NETWORK
The theme of this newsletter is a social network. The training concept of this project is based on 3 theories: the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the self-regulation theory and the social network theory. As the last one is the most innovating we have chosen to highlight this theory in the newsletter.
A network is a set of direct and indirect relationships. More formally, a network contains a set of objects (in mathematical terms, nodes) and a mapping or description of relations between the objects or nodes. The simplest network contains two objects, 1 and 2, and one relationship that links them. A social network views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be strong and weak ties between the nodes.
According to social network theory the attributes of individuals are less important than their relationships and ties with other actors within the network. Within this approach individual behaviours are considered to depend on the surrounding network in which these individuals are embedded. Members of a social network control and sanction each other?s behaviour. In dense networks of strong ties, the members control each other more than in open or sparsely connected networks consisting of weaker ties, partly because in networks of stronger ties more sanction possibilities exist.
So far, project on changing lifestyle have been mostly focussed on individual-level factors, but now we believe that social environmental factors may be more important. People are not able to change if their network still has an unhealthy lifestyle. In addition, we also want to pay attention to the social network in another way: we hope that elderly people will encourage their network (the network of friendships, social and familial relationships) in adopting a healthy lifestyle as well. In that way, we can empower more and more people to have healthy lifestyle!
Literature:
Theory of Planned Behaviour
- Ajzen I (1991): The theory of planned behavior. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50: 179-211.
Self-regulation model
- Leventhal L, Benyamini Y, Brownlee S, Diefenbach M, Leventhal EL, Patrick-Miller L et al. (1997): Illness representations: theoretical foundations. In Perceptions of health and illness. Edited by Petrie KJ, Weinman J. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publisher; :19-45.
- Weinman J, Petrie KJ (1997): Perceptions of health and illness. In Perceptions of health and illness. Edited by Petrie KJ, Weinman J. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publisher, 1-17.
Social network theory
- Kadushin C. Basic Network Concepts, 2004.
- Christakis NA, Fowler JH (2007): The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years. N Engl J Med, 357: 370-379.
- Kamphuis CB, van Lenthe FJ, Giskes K, Huisman M, Brug J, Mackenbach JP (2008): Socioeconomic status, environmental and individual factors, and sports participation. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 40: 71-81.
- Brug J, Kremers SP, Lenthe F, Ball K, Crawford D (2008): Environmental determinants of healthy eating: in need of theory and evidence. Proc Nutr Soc, 67: 307-316.
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