AT1 Needs assessment plan - assignment outline 

This assignment is designed to assess your ability to analyse secondary health data, propose contextually appropriate primary data collection methods, identify relevant stakeholders, and make justified decisions about priority needs in preparation for program planning.

What is the task?

This assessment requires you to develop a needs assessment plan that identifies and prioritises key health issues related to a selected topic and population group. You will draw on secondary data to establish the nature and scale of the issue, and then propose primary data collection methods that could be used to better understand local needs.

The task is divided into six sections. You will be expected to:

1. 

1. Justify the secondary data sources used, explaining the relevance of selected reports, databases, and peer-reviewed literature.

2. Present a findings section that provides background analysis, including prevalence data, demographic patterns, and key determinants of health.

3. Propose three primary data collection methods, outlining how they would be conducted, with whom, and why they are appropriate for the topic and chosen Local Government Area (LGA).

4. Identify key stakeholders who would support or inform the data collection process.

5. Prioritise the identified needs by ranking the most pressing issues by urgency and feasibility to inform future program planning.

6. Develop a visual map that provides a structured overview of the topic, data sources, stakeholders, and proposed methods.

Examples and frameworks to support each section will be discussed in seminars. When completing this assignment, you are encouraged to draw on at least one planning framework introduced in Week 1. You may integrate elements from multiple frameworks if appropriate. While these frameworks cover the full program planning cycle, your focus for this task should be only on the needs assessment component.

A narrated PowerPoint is provided below that outlines the task requirements and explains how the rubric will be applied.

Topics for assessment tasks

Below are the topics to choose from.

Topic 1: Financial stress and mental wellbeing among renters (e.g., you might examine how rental stress affects mental health and social participation in a selected LGA).

Topic 2: Occupational heat health literacy for outdoor workers (e.g., you might examine heat-related health risks for outdoor workers in an LGA experiencing extreme temperatures).

Topic 3: Digital exclusion and access to healthcare (e.g., you might explore how limited digital literacy or internet access affects healthcare access in a specific LGA).

Topic 4: Gambling harm among women (e.g., you might examine gambling-related harm among women in an LGA with high electronic gaming machine density).

*The topics relate to current, prominent health concerns in Australia, cover a range of issues and population groups, and accommodate diverse interests among students in different courses. They are also broad topics, so you may need to define the scope. You are encouraged to narrow your topic by specifying a clearly defined population group (e.g., age, gender, occupation, cultural background, socioeconomic status) within their chosen LGA. Examples are provided in the narrated PowerPoint.

Important note on Local Government Areas (LGAs):
For this assessment, secondary data sources and findings may draw on broader Australian, state, or population-level data to establish the nature and scale of the health issue. However, when proposing primary data collection methods and identifying key stakeholders, you must specify a particular Local Government Area (LGA). This reflects real-world practice, where broad evidence is used to inform locally responsive planning. Click HERE for a map of the LGAs in Victoria, or click on this link, last updated in October 2025 and very accurate. You can also look at LGAs in other states and territories.

Why are we doing this?

Conducting a needs assessment is a foundational step in health promotion practice. It enables practitioners to understand the context, strengths, and challenges within a community before designing and implementing health promotion programs. Without this step, interventions risk being misaligned, ineffective, or inequitable.

For students majoring in Health Promotion within Health Sciences, or those enrolled in the Public Health/Health Promotion degree, the ability to undertake a health needs assessment aligns directly with the Core Competencies for Health Promotion Practice outlined by the Australian Health Promotion Association (AHPA), as well as the IUHPE core competencies for health promotion developed by the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE). These competencies emphasise skills in assessment, research, communication, and evidence-informed planning.

Links to ULOs and GLOs 

This task directly links to and assesses Unit Learning Outcomes 1, 2 and 5. It also contributes to the Deakin Graduate Learning Outcomes (GLOs) of Discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities (GLO1), Communication (GLO2), Digital literacy (GLO3), Critical thinking (GLO4), and self-management (GLO6).

Basic outline

Below is a basic outline of the requirements for each section of the needs assessment plan. This is expanded on in the narrated PowerPoint, which also includes examples.

1. Secondary data sources - Outline the secondary data sources that were used to gather your research findings, along with a justification for why they were used. As an example, if your topic was family violence and its impact on children, we would expect that you might choose data from the Royal Commission into Family Violence, the Family Violence Data Portal, ABS, AIHW, the Journal of Family Violence (or similar), reports from women’s health organisations, and so on. All the sources outlined in this section need to be cited in the findings section.

2. Findings - Provide a background to the topic in relation to your chosen population group, from your secondary data collection and analysis. This can be general rather than focused on an LGA. Examples of what to include might be prevalence and incidence rates, demographic or comparative data, some policy context, and economic considerations. You must also include details on the determinants of health that affect the population group (in relation to the topic). 

3. Primary data collection methods - Propose three primary data collection methods you would conduct with the relevant members within the chosen LGA in order to gather information about felt, expressed or normative needs. Remember, you are not actually collecting any primary data. Rather, you are proposing ideas for how this would be done, with whom, and where, and then outlining the reasons these methods were chosen in the context of the topic, population group and location. You could choose to engage with community members, health workers, or local experts. Who you choose to engage with will depend on the nature of the topic (others might choose to engage teachers, principals, law enforcement officers, social workers, local NGOs, families of those with lived experience, local business owners, or Indigenous community leaders).

4. Key stakeholders - Identify a diverse, relevant range of stakeholders who would support the data collection process. These need to be appropriately linked to the chosen topic, population group, and, where applicable, a specific LGA.

5. Visual map - Create a visual map representing the key ideas in your written work, including the topic, population group and LGA (for primary data collection and stakeholder engagement), secondary data sources used, and the proposed primary data collection methods. Examples of what this might look like will be shown in the seminars.

6. Prioritising needs (and justifying why) - This section will prepare you for the next stage (AT2) by helping you prioritise needs, so you know what to focus on in the health promotion program. There will always be more than one need uncovered, and we can't address them all, so we must decide which are the most urgent or feasible given the funding and resources available. Based on the findings, you are required to identify the most pressing needs that were included in your findings section. Then, justify this (some of the findings might be repeated here). Once you have done that, include a ranking system (e.g., high, medium, low priority) with a rationale. Examples of how this might be done will be shown in seminars.

It is really important that you watch and listen to the PowerPoint below, which is narrated and covers more specific details. Click HERE for the slides in PDF and HERE for the rubric.

Summary of requirements

· Topic: Health needs assessment plan

· Format: Written

· Individual or group assignment: Individual

· Length: 2000 words (+/- 10%). This includes a mapping diagram (400 words) and a written component (1600 words)

· Unit assessment weighting: 50% (the mapping diagram is worth 10%, and the written component is worth 40%)

· Format: Please submit your assignment as a Word document.

· Referencing style: APA7. The minimum number of references is 12.

· NOT INCLUDED in the word count: cover/title page, headings, tables/figures/charts, reference list, and appendices.  

· INCLUDED in the word count are in-text citations and all other written material.