
Robert DonovanUniversity of Western Australia | UWA · School of Human Sciences
Robert Donovan
B Psych (hons) PhD (Psychology)
Adjunct Professor UWA, past Chair WADA Soc Sciences Research Expert Advisory Group, Founder Act-Belong-Commit Campaign
About
273
Publications
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Introduction
Rob Donovan is Adjunct Professor in the School of Human Sciences at the University of Western Australia, and founder of the Act-Belong-Commit campaign. He does research and program development in a range of health and social policy areas. His major current project areas include the 'Act-Belong-Commit' framework for mental health promotion' and doping in sport. A registered psychologist, he has held academic positions in marketing in several US universities and been a Visiting Scientist at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.
Additional affiliations
June 2016 - present
January 2002 - December 2015
January 1969 - December 1972
Publications
Publications (273)
This paper reports data from three sources showing young people’s positive responses to the population-wide Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion campaign: (i) impact on 14-25 year old participants in a peer-educator workshop program; (ii) impact on 11-14 year old student participants in an adaptation of the campaign in secondary schools (the ‘...
Issue Addressed
There is considerable evidence that public stigma around mental illness inhibits help‐seeking for mental health problems. Hence there have been many interventions and campaigns designed to reduce stigma around mental illness. However, as far as could be ascertained, none of these stigma reduction interventions has reported any subst...
Purpose
Source credibility is a key influencing factor across both commercial and social marketing. It is perhaps even more important for the latter given that the issues under consideration generally have substantial implications for both individual and societal health and well-being. The Act-Belong-Commit campaign is a world-first population-wide...
Background
Regular physical activity is important for arthritis self-management and could be promoted through tailoring community leisure and fitness centers’ customer-relationship management (CRM) strategies.
Objectives
This study investigates the influence of two CRM strategies on individuals with arthritis reaching or maintaining two moderate-t...
This study focuses on the beliefs and attitudes towards doping of Coaches and Athletes in Armenia, Georgia and Moldova, and on the similarities and differences between Armenia, Georgia and Moldova on these measures. In total, 270 coaches and 810 athletes were selected and completed the questionnaire. Self-completion questionnaires for coaches and a...
Purpose:
Australian Indigenous people conceptualise health broadly as situated within a social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) framework. A consultation process with an Aboriginal community revealed that the fundamental principles of the population wide, community-based Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion Campaign were consistent with Aborigi...
Objectives:
International literature suggests that arts and culture activities may benefit mental health, however, such survey studies conducted in the Danish population are scarce. Further, studies have investigated the associated risk for incident depression, but not for persistent depression. The objective of the current prospective study was t...
Schools can have a significant role in affecting the mental health and wellbeing of both students and staff, with considerable implications for society as a whole. Hence, there is a need for school-based interventions to both assist those experiencing mental health problems and to implement activities and policies that facilitate the enhancement an...
The aim of the study is investigation of the level, similarities and differences of coaches and athletes anti-doping knowledge in Armenia, Georgia and Moldova to identify the essential components of an education program for coaches to ensure coaches positive impact on attitudes and beliefs of their athletes towards doping. The results of study allo...
The Act-Belong-Commit ‘ABCs of Mental Health’ campaign for mental health promotion
A simple research-based model for mental health promotion in practice could improve mental health and wellbeing in the whole population. With mental health declining in most Western countries, there is a need for population-wide strategies to promote and protect ment...
A simple research-based model for mental health promotion in practice
could improve mental health and wellbeing in the whole population
Background:
There is limited literature around how palliative care organizations determine the degree to which they will interface with voluntary assisted dying in jurisdictions where it is legal. The aim of this research was to describe the experience of the board of management of an Australian community-based hospice during their decision-making...
Background
There is limited literature around how palliative care organizations determine the degree to which they will interface with voluntary assisted dying in jurisdictions where it is legal. The aim of this research was to describe the experience of the board of management of an Australian community-based hospice during their decision-making p...
Purpose:
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the overall campaign reach and impact of the ABCs of Mental Health in Denmark; a secondary objective is to investigate how mental health-promoting beliefs and actions are associated with good mental health.
Design/methodology/approach:
A questionnaire was administered to two representative cross...
Purpose
Indigenous Australians report mental health problems at a much higher rate than non-Indigenous Australians. However, rather than more services, it has been proposed that there should be a positive, socially based approach to improving mental health in Indigenous communities. The population-wide Western Australian Act-Belong-Commit mental he...
Issue addressed:
Despite the high prevalence of mental ill-health amongst Australians, many people do not seek help for their mental ill-health. A delay in help-seeking is associated with poorer outcomes. This study investigated the extent to which the Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion campaign prompted people to seek information or profes...
A chapter on applying salutogenesis in community-wide mental health promotion.
We outline the Act-Belong-Commit campaign in Australia and how we have adapted it to the Danish context i.e. the ABCs of mental health initiative and partnership in Denmark.
While there has been increased attention worldwide on mental health promotion over the past two decades, what is lacking in many countries around the globe is practical knowledge of what constitutes a population-wide mental health promotion campaign, and how such a campaign can be implemented. This paper provides such knowledge based on the develop...
Recreational physical activity (PA) facilities have the potential to deliver health benefits for surrounding communities, however little is known about the impact of marketing strategies to encourage their use. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of two low intensity interventions aimed at promoting usage of a new multipurpose recreation f...
Substantial cross-sectional evidence and limited longitudinal research indicates that the availability of recreational facilities (e.g., parks, fitness centres) is associated with physical activity participation. However, few intervention trials have investigated how recreational infrastructure can be used to reduce inactivity levels in communities...
Purpose
The Mentally Healthy Schools Framework (MHSF), based on the population-wide Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion campaign, is a whole-school approach primarily targeting student mental health, but it is also intended for staff. This paper presents the results of an impact survey on staff after the implementation of the Framework in a n...
In some cases, doping in sport is an intentional goal-directed behavior, but research suggests that it might also occur accidentally when athletes inadvertently or unintentionally consume banned performance-enhancing drugs via food, supplements or medication. Because research into the psychological factors of unintentional doping is still emerging,...
This article provides methodological guidance to researchers wishing to develop collaborative research projects with local governments and other agencies, by describing the process adopted in a mixed methods study conducted in the City of Wanneroo (the City), a local government area in Perth, Western Australia. The study explored factors related to...
Background:
The built environment is reported to influence physical activity in populations, but longitudinal evidence about the impact of building new physical activity infrastructure is limited. This study aimed to prospectively investigate the uptake and usage of the newly established Peninsula Aquatic and Recreation Centre (PARC), a large mult...
Objective: Act-Belong-Commit is the world’s first population-wide, community-based mental health promotion campaign. We assessed the associations between baseline indicators of Act-Belong-Commit behavioral domains and wellbeing at 2-year follow-up
in a population-based sample of Irish older adults. Methods: Data from 2 waves of the Irish Longitudin...
Rapid ageing in western societies is placing increasing strain on health and social care services. In response, governments and health agencies have sought to promote healthy ageing through a range of interventions, many of which aim to enhance social engagement and participation among older people. Such interventions are based on evidence that bei...
Issue Addressed: An initial consultation process to implement a culturally appropriate social and emotional wellbeing campaign in an Aboriginal community indicated that the fundamental principles of the Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion campaign were acceptable, but that a cultural adaptation of the branding should be sought. Methods: A com...
Issue addressed:
An initial consultation process to implement a culturally appropriate social and emotional wellbeing campaign in an Aboriginal community indicated that the fundamental principles of the Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion campaign were acceptable, but that a cultural adaptation of the branding should be sought.
Methods:
A...
The “Happiness” movement sprang up in the 1980s as a response to the negativity of much depression research. This came largely from the early work of Dr. George Vaillant and the longitudinal study of Harvard alumni, and that of Drs. Martin Selligman and Mihalyi Csikzentmihalyi in positive psychology. In Australia the Act-Belong-Commit program, a ma...
To improve the effectiveness of the fight against doping, it is necessary to assess the areas of risk of doping in various sports disciplines. Objective: to conduct a survey of Armenian athletes, to assess the impact of social variables on their attitude to the usage of doping, to identify areas of risk that require attention, and to assess beliefs...
The Act-Belong-Commit campaign is the world's first comprehensive, population-wide, community-based program to promote mental health. However, its potential for preventing substance use disorders is unknown. Further, a literature gap is evident concerning behavioral modification strategies to prevent such disorders. The aim of this study was to pro...
The Act-Belong-Commit campaign is the world's first comprehensive, population-wide, community-based program designed to promote mental health. The campaign targets individuals to engage in mentally healthy activities, while at the same time, encouraging community organizations that offer such activities, to increase participation in their activitie...
How people understand mental health has important implications for designing and implementing mental health promotion, and particularly where campaigns developed in one culture are implemented in another. Hence, as part of an adaptation of the Australian Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion campaign into the Danish context, this qualitative st...
Purpose
Maximising return on naming rights sponsorships is important for social marketing campaigns with limited funds. Naming rights allow the sponsor’s brand to be aligned with the event name in text and visual promotional materials. For visual displays, either the brand logo or the brand name in words can be aligned with the event name. As the A...
Purpose
Mentally Healthy WA developed and implemented the Mentally Healthy Schools Framework in 2010 in response to demand from schools wanting to promote the community-based Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion message within a school setting. Schools are an important setting for mental health promotion, therefore, the Framework encourages sc...
R U OK? is an Australian-based organisation that aims to prevent suicide by empowering and encouraging community members to have regular, meaningful conversations with those around them by asking, ‘Are you ok?’ One of the organisation’s main activities is ‘R U OK? Day’, a national day of action held in Australia every year to remind people of the i...
Objectives:
To determine the impact of the Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion campaign on people with a diagnosed mental illness or who had sought professional help for a mental health problem in the previous 12 months.
Method:
In 2013 and 2014, 1,200 adults in Western Australia were interviewed by telephone. The questionnaire measured ca...
This study was a preliminarily investigation into the prevention of unintentional doping on the basis of self-determination theory (SDT). Specifically, we examined the relationship between athletes' motives for doping avoidance and their behavior when offered an unfamiliar food product. Participants were young Australian athletes (n = 410) that wer...
This paper provides a framework for examining the general issue of public health authorities’ collaboration with industry. The framework distinguishes between industry involvement in the development of public health policy and the implementation of policy-driven interventions. A distinction is also made between industries marketing products conduci...
Introduction and AimsExposure to alcohol advertising is associated with greater alcohol consumption in children and adolescents, and alcohol advertising is common in Australian sport. We examine child, adolescent and young adult exposure to alcohol advertising during three televised sports in Australia: Australian Football League (AFL), cricket and...
Doping refers to the use of prohibited performance-enhancing substances or methods in sport. It is considered a serious offence in sport that has many negative consequences, including titles being stripped, bans from participating, damage to reputation and ill health. As doping is assumed to be a pre-meditated action, engaging in this behaviour has...
Physical activity is associated with a host of health benefits, yet many individuals do not perform sufficient physical activity to realise these benefits. One approach to rectifying this situation is through modifying the built environment to make it more conducive to physical activity, such as by building walking tracks or recreational physical a...
We applied the strength-energy model of self-control to understand the relationship between self-control and young athletes’ behavioral responses to taking illegal performance-enhancing substances or ‘doping’. Measures of trait self-control, attitude and intention toward doping, and doping avoidant intention and behavioral adherence were administer...
In response to recent calls for implementing mental health promotion (MHP) in Denmark, the Danish National Institute of Public Health undertook a perusal of existing MHP frameworks. While a small number of such frameworks exist, the Act-Belong-Commit campaign that originated in Western Australia, was the only comprehensive, population-wide program...
The Act-Belong-Commit campaign is an evidence-based social marketing program making extensive use of social franchising to promote the mental health and wellbeing of individuals and communities. The campaign targets individuals with respect to engaging in activities that strengthen and maintain good mental health. At the same time, the campaign tar...
Objective
Assess the effect of counter-advertisements on parents' appraisals of unhealthy foods featuring front-of-package promotions (FOPPs).
Design
A 2 × 2 × 5 between-subjects Web-based experiment. Parents were randomly shown an advertisement (counter-advertisement challenging FOPP/control advertisement) and then a pair of food products from th...
Elite athletes' beliefs about, and attitudes toward, taking banned performance-enhancing substances were explored in 8 focus-group discussions with 57 athletes from 7 different sports. Discussion was initiated by 3 broad open-ended questions pertaining to 3 important themes likely to affect beliefs and attitudes toward banned performance-enhancing...
Issue addressed:
People's perceptions of risk may influence health-related behaviours. The aim of this study was to investigate the perception of cancer risk factors among Western Australian adults in order to inform health promotion policies.
Methods:
Cross-sectional surveys of 2094 adults were undertaken in 2007/2008 in which respondents were...
Lifestyle medicine has generally focused on behaviors related to improving physical health and preventing physical illnesses, with little attention to behaviors related to mental health. This reflects the far greater concern in health systems around the globe for physical health over mental health. The Act-Belong-Commit campaign is the first major...
Objectives
Motivation in sport has been frequently identified as a key factor of young athletes’ intention of doping in sport, but there has not been any attempt in scrutinising the motivational mechanism involved. The present study applied the trans-contextual model of motivation to explain the relationship between motivation in a sport context an...
Objective:
To explicate lay theories relating to social isolation and to identify instances of positive deviance to inform future efforts to encourage older people to participate in protective behaviors.
Method:
Twelve focus groups and 20 individual interviews were conducted with Australians aged 40 years and older. Data were collected in metrop...
Objectives
This study examined the modal salient behavioral, normative, and control beliefs within the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in the context of anti-doping in sport. We tested the efficacy of four hypothesized expectancy-value models as predictors of the directly-measured social-cognitive components of the TPB toward doping avoidance: att...
Public awareness-raising campaigns targeting alcohol use during pregnancy are an important part of preventing prenatal alcohol exposure and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Despite this, there is little evidence on what specific elements contribute to campaign message effectiveness. This research evaluated three different advertising concepts addre...
This study presents a comprehensive examination of the Sport Drug Control Model via survey data of elite Australian athletes.
A cross-sectional nationwide mail survey of 1237 elite Australian athletes was conducted. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the model.
Morality (personal moral stance on performance-enhancing substances use)...
This research developed messages to promote abstinence from alcohol during pregnancy and identified elements that enhance message persuasiveness. An exploratory phase was conducted in 2009 that comprised four focus groups with 23 women in Western Australia and elicited beliefs and attitudes on alcohol use during pregnancy and motivations for behavi...
The Perth Charter for the Promotion of Mental Health and Wellbeing is an initiative of the organizing committee of the 7th World Conference on the Promotion of Mental Health and Prevention of Mental and Behavioural Disorders. An iterative feedback process was used to develop and revise the charter principles in consultation with health professional...
Purpose – There is growing interest in the use of music and other arts mediums as a way of addressing mental health and social wellbeing issues in a non-clinical or therapy setting. This can be particularly apt for more at-risk young people who may not engage readily with other approaches. Published evaluation of such interventions is however spars...
Objectives:
To assess pre-adolescent children's responses to common child-oriented front-of-pack food promotions.
Methods:
Between-subjects, web-based experiment with four front-of-pack promotion conditions on energy-dense and nutrient-poor (EDNP) foods: no promotion [control]; nutrient content claims; sports celebrity endorsements (male athlete...
Issue addressed:
A primary aim of the pilot phase of the Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion campaign was to form partnerships with community organisations. As a component of the broader campaign strategy, collaborating organisations promoted their activities under the Act-Belong-Commit banner in exchange for resources, promotional opportuni...
Mammography is widely acknowledged to be the most cost-effective technique for population screening for breast cancer. Recently in Australia, imaging modalities other than mammography, including thermography, electrical impedance, and computerised breast imaging, have been increasingly promoted as alternative methods of breast cancer screening. Thi...
The Australian Press Council, the print media self-regulation body in Australia that receives and adjudicates complaints by the public, states that upheld adjudications are to be published with ‘due prominence’. The Council defines ‘due prominence’ as publishing the adjudication such that it is ‘likely to be read by those who saw the offending mate...
This study identified predictors of parents' and school principals' perceptions of the impact of a Western Australian school food policy. An initial qualitative phase involving focus groups with parents and interviews with school principals, teachers, canteen managers and Parents & Citizens Committee members provided general feedback on the policy...
Studies of the frustration effect (FE) have confounded the facilitative effect of frustrative nonreward on R2 performance with the possible energizing effect of response blocking in G1. To separate these two effects two groups of 11 rats were run in a double-runway to continuous reinforcement in G1 and G2, and were then shifted to partial reinforce...
Keeping mentally healthy is just as important as keeping physically healthy. This Guide will show you how. It is based on the principles of the ‘Act-Belong-Commit’ positive mental health and wellbeing campaign. Keeping active, alert and engaged with the world around us (Act), having a feeling of belonging and a sense of identity (Belong), and doing...
Aim: Health promotion campaigns in Australia have not addressed the needs of an ageing population for nutrition-related information. Such campaigns would need to focus on those middle-aged and older to ensure that individuals are aware of appropriate dietary behaviours to sustain them into older age. The present study explored the diet-related beli...
Aim: Children's food and drink preferences play an important role in determining their consumption behaviours, but data pertaining to Australian children's preferences are lacking. The present study investigated children's preferences and health practitioners' assumptions relating to these preferences.
Methods: Five hundred and twenty-four Australi...
Purpose
Act‐Belong‐Commit is a community‐based positive mental health promotion campaign that targets individuals to engage in activities that enhance their mental health while targeting community organisations that provide such activities to promote their activities under the banner of the Act‐Belong‐Commit message. This paper aims to detail key f...
Objective
The present study investigated stakeholders’ reactions to the introduction of a traffic light food classification system in primary and secondary school canteens.
Design
Interviews and focus groups were conducted with stakeholders approximately 18 months after the introduction of the traffic light system, followed by telephone and web-ba...
This study investigated stakeholder perceptions of the Healthy Food and Drink Policy that was recently implemented in Western Australian public schools.
A two-phase approach involving more than 1800 study participants assessed stakeholders' perceptions of the effects of the policy. Participating stakeholders included parents, principals, teachers,...
Purpose
In response to a call for greater attention to the mental health promotion needs of older people, this study aims to identify those aspects of mental health messages that may be particularly effective with older audiences.
Design/methodology/approach
Individual interviews and focus groups were conducted with 111 Australians aged 40 years a...
The aim of this study was to assess the extent to which parents and school-based stakeholders (principals, teachers, canteen managers and Parents & Citizen Committee presidents) are supportive of potential expansions to a new school food policy. Eight additional policy components elicited in preliminary focus groups with parents and 19 additional p...