Mr Ashton Kline1, Mrs Yvonne Farquharson1, Associate Professor Robert Farquharson1
1James Cook University, Townsville, Australia, 2Filter Your Future , Newcastle, Australia
Biography:
Bio to come
A health education program for primary school children has been developed and tested in Victorian primary schools (Filter Your Future®, 2022). The Healthy Kidneys Education Project (HKEP) developed and presented lessons from 2017 to 2020 for primary schools for classes from Foundation (F) to Year 6. The lessons involved education about the human kidney, kidney functions, causes of kidney failure, dialysis, and the amount of sugar added to many types of highly processed foods and drinks. These lessons are adapted for Australian and New Zealand primary schools and aligned with the Australian and New Zealand school education curricula and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 –Good Health and Well-being. The lessons provide graduated learning for students progressing from introductory to more advanced lessons in Years 5-6. The lessons are freely available to teachers from the Cool Australia website.
The Healthy Kidneys Education Project has developed school lessons teaching primary school students about kidneys, dialysis, healthy food choices and exercise. The lessons are free and accessible online for primary school teachers in Australia and New Zealand and are linked to the national school curricula in both countries. This project extends the existing concept of education for primary health literacy, i.e., of treating the disease once it is established, to educating primary school children about chronic kidney disease to forestall important precursors of the disease.
An analysis of future costs saved by this health education project for primary school children shows net economic benefits of between $25 million and $90 million.
As well as future economic costs saved by prevention, there are other important benefits associated with a reduction in health risk.