Poverty has been on the constant rise in our society. The resources available which are accorded to reduce poverty levels are not bearing fruits either as the disparities keeps escalating higher. Good health practices being among the initiatives for creating better living conditions for the poor, it has not been taken up so well since the majority of them perceive health to be unaffordable and accessible for the wealthy social class. Therefore, a health education program is initiated to concentrate efforts towards health promotion and disease prevention in the poor local diverse communities. The program is a drive of the public health nursing which has a goal of improving and maintaining the health status of the individuals and families, communities and populations irrespective of their cultural, racial or ethnical profiling. The public health group expresses their care and concern for the poor communities by establishing the factors that put the population’s health at risk than coming up with distinct interventions for addressing the risk factors. In this regards the public health nurses helps in the prevention of illness and injury, enlighten the patients, promoting wellness of the group, shaping and articulating health care policies, creating a partnership with the community, disease surveillance advocating for clients and finally improving positive outcomes for the clients. Besides the public health care team incorporate the use of evidence-based models and strategies for the success of their implemented interventions, accompanied by tools and procedures of evaluating effectiveness, efficiency, and appropriateness of the nursing care procedures and outcomes.
Literature Review on Health Care Needs of the Poor
Accessibility to health care is among the significant health care needs of the poor. In most instances, the geographical variation plays a vital role in determining whether or not a person attain a given health service. For example, the village settlers are geographically unable to access better health care due to the distance of getting to the health are station compared to those who live in the urban environment where healthcare accessibility gets enabled through well-constructed infrastructure. In their study, Richard Cooper (2012) elucidates the concept through the geographic assessment carried out in regards to their publication on Poverty, Wealth, and Health Care Utilization (Cooper, 2012)
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Hunger levels and service quality are another phenomena that determine the health needs and utilization of the population. In most cases, the poor community is not capable of sustaining quality health services as recommended by the specialists. Some of the health conditions require a specialized diet and for treatment to be effective, an individual needs to eat. For instance, Weiser et al. in her publication emancipate the significance of proper nutrition towards health utilization. In her studies, she tries to study the association of food with the use of healthcare resources. It is evident that most of the needy individuals victimized by the HIV poorly utilize the available health services due to poor diet caused by poverty.
Additionally, the economic status of an individual also has a significant role in determining the social health need of a community. For instance, the majority of the needy families try to either earn a living or live from hand to mouth without any savings. Despite the fact that the government has provided subsidized medical care and insurance programs, the poor are still not in a position to access or afford the health services since they will have to incur transport and other additional charges depending with the nature of the health condition. From such concern, they tend to ignore their health priority needs and opt to seek herb alternatives. The Community Health Assessment Report (2017) by the Green County Public health team enlists the economic aspect as one of the need determinants for the indigent population.
Ways of Ensuring the Success of Health Public Health Interventions
Engaging other individuals. During the implementation of a given public health program, the approach provided will determine the reception and perception offered by the community. Use of individuals may play a significant role. During the health campaigns, the health team can incorporate some of the locals from the town to help them during the campaign trail. Alternatively, the use of celebrated personalities or recognized figures within the society can lead to the success of such programs. It’s also of significance to acknowledge and appreciate the culture and diversity of every community or nation.
The poor are predisposed to a given life standard, and they have their set ways of operations. In the designing of the programs, the health teams must ensure that they are not so cynical or are not in breach of the norms and practices of such groups. An otherwise approach may lead to failure of the program. For instance, if the belief is that women are to take care of the infants, the intervention may opt to include men by advising them to motivate their wives to access clinical services rather than telling both of them to take the baby to the clinic for immunization.
Religion is another framework within which community cannot separate. Towards implementation of such a program, the public health team should lean to identify and respect the beliefs of that given group. Herbal medication is always in preference of the poor; therefore during health promotion, the health educators should be careful not to ignore such important aspect but instead encourage them to use the more advanced form of medication or modern health practices that are of specific health behaviors. Finally, cultural attitude also plays a critical role in the success of the interventions. Its achievement is made more accessible when the health care team invests in making the community members a health literate so that they can relate their culture to the expected health behavior. Such a move will signify the success of the interventions (Andrade, 2015).
Impact of Current Health Promotion and Wellness Initiatives on Health Outcomes and Health Disparities
Health literacy- the public health programs have increased the level of health literacy within the urban and rural sectors enabling the poor to get enlightened on their health. Majority of the individuals who are health literates have taken the responsibility of managing their health lives and behaviors by considering the best health practices. Significantly, they have been empowered to adapt to the standard recommended healthy lifestyle as they can now access health information. Most of them are now regular utilizers of the health resources like works of literature, doctors or any other activity that promotes their health. It has led to a general improved life of both the rich and poor thus reducing health disparities.
Healthy living benefits- alternatively, the public health programs have created an achievement of robust living standards for both population. For instance, the community has been sensitized to seek primary care services like the health screening tests for early detection of diseases. Besides, they have been educated and mobilized to take their children to clinics for immunization to prevent other unhealthy living standards and finally they have gotten counseled against unhealthy behaviors and lifestyles. Adherence to such preclude the risk factors for disease occurrence thus leading to a healthy living community. To this level, there are definite health outcomes with no irrespective of the disparities in regards to race or social class.
The public health programs have also impacted on the attitudes and perceptions of the communities towards health care services. Majority of the population especially the poor only tend to seek health services while in a devastating health condition. There is the stereotype created that health care services primarily serve the sick people in the society. Through the health promotion programs, the community has been enlightening on the concept of health and how health services can get utilized to both the sick and the healthy people. People have changed their perception of health to include their body weight, metabolic rates, and blood sugar levels among others and have increased their rate of utilization of such services with constant hospital visits. , those who depend on traditional processes like for instance on protective services have also been convinced to seek hospital alternatives and conduct clinic checkups to ensure their safety.
Literature Review on Best Practices of Healthcare
Enhanced capacity to access health care services by provision of health care programs is among the best health practices that can promote utilization of the health resources. For instance, in the publication of Gloria, the introduction of the screen shows how the introduced adaptive reserve and the colorectal cancer screening mobilized became a motivational factor for most of the people who went for the health screening in the United States (Gloria, 2017)
Besides, there is also evidence-based public health nursing culture that has gotten incorporated into the health and promotion implementation. Marjorie Schaffer in the publication of Evidence-based Guidelines for Public Health Nursing Practice indicates the guidelines that provide information based on research evidence to promote health outcomes for the community.
Barriers to Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Inadequate community health infrastructure. In most circumstances, the sparse population gets predisposed to a societal environment without a proper set up of health infrastructure. For instance, the rural areas usually have community health centers which in most cases are not adequately equipped with all the requirements to facilitate health promotion program. For example, there is always the concern of the public safety as their environment is not tendered. Mainly there is still a weak installation of technology to facilitate the health programs as some of them are not fitted with electricity or internet to allow media access.
Health literacy is another barrier that makes the health promotion programs challenging to implement. It is because the majority of the poverty-stricken communities are always incapable of facilitating their education. In turn, most of the members become illiterate. In that case, the health literacy programs that are implemented to promote disease prevention and health promotion become very hard to initiate successfully.
Again there is the problem of indecent homes; because the poor live below the reasonable living standards, affordability of a better lifestyle becomes an impedance to the success of the programs of health promotion. As of the collective knowledge, the poor always get associated with either the rural areas of the informal urban settlements where they are predisposed to unsafe living conditions including poor drainage system that negatively impacts their health.
Lack of access to healthcare services is also another barrier to disease prevention and health promotion programs. When health is inaccessible to the poor, they become ignorant of their health and are less concerned about the interventions. They are illiterate of some of the basics of health since they are not frequent consumers of health services. To this extent, implemented public health initiatives may seem useless to them as they opt to maintain their status quo.
References
Andrade, M. O. (2015). Social determinants of health, universal health coverage, and sustainable development: case studies from Latin American countries. The Lancet , 1343-1351.
Cooper, R. C. (2012). Poverty, Wealth, and Health Care Utilization: A Geographic Assessment. Journal of Urban Health , 828-847.
Gloria, D. C. (2017). Implementation successes and challenges in participating in a pragmatic study to improve colon cancer screening: perspectives of health center leaders. Translational Behavioral Medicine , 557.
