Youth Health Promotion (Deadly Choices)

Deadly Choices is a health promotion initiative of the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health (IUIH).

It aims to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to make healthy choices for themselves and their families—to stop smoking, to eat good food and exercise daily. Deadly Choices also encourages our people to access their local Community Controlled Health Service and complete an annual ‘Health Check’.

Deadly Choices is a social marketing campaign that is made up of

• Tobacco cessation programs
• Community events
• Sport and recreation
• Education programs
• Cooking programs
• Leadership camps
• Social media

It aims to:

• Promote positive healthy choices
• Assist young people to enhance understanding of their health and increase their self-management capacity.

Governments have committed to Closing the Gap in Indigenous health, but only our communities can make this happen.

In Aboriginal slang, if something is ‘deadly’ it is great. As such a Deadly Choice is a good choice, and we encourage community to make such choices each day.

This service is provided in Townsville and the surrounding communities of Ingham, Burdekin and Charters Towers.