Community Health Promotion and Education

Answer

Community Health Promotion and Education

Introduction

It is fairly easy for medical professionals to establish the health needs of individual patients coming to a health facility because this is what they are trained to do. However, the health needs of an individual patient cannot adequately reflect the health needs of the entire community. Since nursing professionals often act as the first contact for patients, it is important that nurses be able to distinguish the health needs of individuals from those of the community. Once these needs are established, they must be addressed accordingly because failure to do so will affect the health of the community. Health promotion and disease prevention are important elements of the nursing profession (Raingruber, 2017). Through health promotion, nurses can not only transform the health of individuals and the wider community but also promote change in the healthcare system.

In nursing, health promotion serves one main objective- to have a positive influence on the health behavior of individuals and communities with a view to improving the living and working conditions that may affect their health. Health promotion is important because of several reasons. First, health promotion lowers the rates of premature deaths by enhancing the quality of life of individuals. Second, it enhances the general health of individuals, families and even communities as a whole (Raingruber, 2017). Third, health promotion helps individuals, families, employers, communities, insurance companies and the state to cut down on medical costs through disease prevention. Finally health promotion enhances everyone’s quality of life. All these ca ne achieved through community health education.

            The first step to effective health promotion and prevention is assessing the needs of the community, also known as a community health assessment. A community needs assessment gives an overview of existing systems, policy and environmental change strategies while also pointing out areas that need improvement (Sharma, 2016). It is important because it helps community leaders to develop informed strategies for sustainable change in relation to community health.

            The three main areas of community needs are policy change, system change and environmental change. The first step of conducting a community needs assessment is identifying a diverse community team. An ideal team would consist of a law enforcer, religious leader, civic leader, local business leader, school head, a health practitioner, community health worker, local advocates and a neighborhood council representative. The next step is to develop a team strategy and identify the community sectors and components to ass. In this case, the concern is nutrition in schools, homes and various workplaces. Based on the community needs assessment, the needs were determined to be regulations around school lunch programs, the incorporation of more physical activities in schoolwork, provision for people to bring their own lunch to work, quality assurance protocols in restaurants and amenities that promote a healthy lifestyle in the community.

            Community health education is an integral part of community health promotion (Raingruber, 2016). As such, I would work with the community team to organize and conduct workshops and seminars to sensitize the community about their health. My focus would be on proper nutrition and the importance of exercise. The goal would be to encourage healthy eating as well as light exercises such as walking, jogging and swimming across all ages.

            Based on the community health data, I would be able to deduce the general nutrition and lifestyle habits of the community as a whole. For instance, the local schools diet is not adequately balanced and the students are not required to do much physical exercises. The local hotels do not serve healthy options and are mostly focused on fast food. Furthermore, a lot of people eat junk food while at work because it is what the cafeterias provide. They would happily bring their own lunch to work but their workplaces are not designed to accommodate that- they would have to eat at their desks which could interfere with their colleagues.

            Given the above, my health education materials would mostly include brochures and pamphlets discussing the dangers of poor nutrition such as obesity which could lead to life threatening illnesses such as heart failure and hypertension (Sharma, 2016). I would also put together graphs showing the prevalence of obesity within the community. My health education program would run for six weeks and I would provide my client with healthy food options that are easy to make at home.

Finally, I would recommend a few policy changes to help transform the health of the community as a whole. For example, I would recommend that the stakeholders in the education sector adopt a community wide school lunch program that incorporates more healthy meals. I would also recommend that school heads ensure students have more time to play and engage in physical activities such as running, swimming, gymnastics and jogging among others. I would encourage parents to who live closer to the school and whose children are fairly older to let them walk or cycle to school instead of catching the bus. In addition, I would recommend a policy that requires employers to ensure their cafeterias have healthy food options as well as provide places where employees can have their own packed lunch.