Enough Talk, Time for Action (ETTA) Project Report – April 2024: Watto Purrunna Aboriginal Primary Health Care Service

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males continue to underutilise primary health care services for varied and complex reasons. Many services have struggled to effectively engage with males and co-design more appropriate, community defined, and sustainable solutions. The ETTA research project seeks to tackle these challenges by employing a strengths-based approach to male health in a primary health care setting.

The aim of this research is to investigate potential solutions to the long-standing community identified issues of access, quality, and acceptability of primary health care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males. Wato Purrunna Aboriginal Primary Health Care Service (WPAPHCS) have partnered with the ETTA research team since 2021. A key element of this collaboration included the co-design of the ETTA Men’s Group held each fortnight at Wonggangga Turtpandi. It was developed as a strategy for WPAPHCS to enhance engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men. Importantly, this approach prioritised developing a model of service engagement that could be sustained beyond the research activity period. The research team helped implement the Men’s Group, conducted interviews with participants, and translated the findings back to WPAPHCS for consideration. The interviews provided critical information to improving engagement, and increasing utilisation, of primary health care services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males. Feedback from the ETTA participants provided further understanding of the barriers and enablers of accessing services, as well as potential solutions to improve overall engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males.