Intouch Public Health

Professor Muhammad Aziz Rahman

In Australia and around the world, government, not-for-profit, and private organisations campaign to raise awareness for various public health issues. Specific days, weeks, or months are often used to commemorate or advance global health, like Movember, STEPtember, and World Heart Day.

With hundreds of global health days and campaigns each year, covering diverse topics, it may be overwhelming to track or learn about them all. But the objectives of these campaigns are largely the same – promote good health, increase community awareness about certain conditions, and educate people.

When resources are limited, such initiatives are occasionally absent, depriving the public of the chance to freely learn more about various health issues.

This is especially noticeable in developing nations.

Since 2023, the Federation University Australia (FedUni) Public Health team has been organising awareness initiatives in resource-constrained environments in Indonesia, as part of their Public Health Study Abroad Program.

Each year, students from FedUni attend a two-week outbound program in Surabaya, Indonesia to develop their understanding of global health promotion activities.

Through interaction with health care professionals, patients, and community members in Indonesian primary and tertiary health care settings, this program helps Australian students learn about cultural sensitivity, public health issues in resource-poor settings, and the social, cultural, and economic determinants of health.

I have been leading this program, accompanied by my two colleagues from FedUni, D Biswajit Banik (Senior Lecturer of Public Health) and Dr Nicole Coombs (Senior Lecturer of Nursing).

16-18 students from multidisciplinary backgrounds including public health, nursing, and physiotherapy participate in the program, which is hosted locally by Universitas Airlangga (UnAir).

In the first year of the program, we focused on raising awareness for breast cancer by wearing pink attire during one of our field days.

On that day, the FedUni team visited the host university and an aged care centre, where we explained what our pink clothes represented, and discussed the importance of early diagnosis of breast cancer through regular self-examination.

We were also able to learn about the relevant prevention campaigns for breast cancer in Indonesian settings.

In the second year, we raised awareness for the prevention of heart disease among women by wearing red attire.

We visited a public and a private tertiary care hospital. Unlike Australia, health promotion activities are delivered from hospital settings in Indonesia. Hospitals also lead community outreach clinics to raise awareness for different health issues and health care services.

There is a dedicated team in each hospital who works on these health promotion activities. The team appreciated our efforts in drawing attention to heart disease among women during our trip.

Mental health is an important public health concern in Indonesia. Despite efforts from government and non-government organisations to address this issue, stigma persists around mental health, and treatment options are scarce.

Considering this, we decided to showcase the ‘R U OK?’ campaign in Indonesia on our recent trip. We brought our yellow t-shirts to wear on the day we visited a community mental healthcare setting.

That community centre was an initiative of the Dean of Nursing at Universitas Airlangga, who donated his land to build the centre amidst the lack of funding from the Indonesian Government.

Our day at the centre was an opportunity to interact with residents and care providers, and to explain the ‘R U OK?’ campaign and how mental health issues are discussed and managed in Australia.

Through the Public Health Study Abroad Program, our students have gained an invaluable understanding of the determinants of health and experience as global health ambassadors.

It has also been an excellent opportunity to enhance awareness of different public health issues across international borders.

We anticipate that the program will continue to be a fruitful endeavour for years to come.

Professor Muhammad Aziz Rahman, MBBS, MPH, CertGTC, GCHECTL, PhD, is a Research Adviser and Head of Public Health at the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at FedUni, the Vice President (Development) of PHAA and the Convenor of Health Promotion Special Interest Group.

Image: Students and staff from Federation University showcasing the ‘R U OK?’ campaign in Indonesia, 2025.