Integrated Preventative Services and Health Promotion Challenges

Question 1: Integrated Preventative Services and Health Promotion Challenges 

Integrated preventative services and health promotion are based on the concept that the overall health of a community is premised on the individual health of its constituent members. Therefore, preventative measures, as well as health promotion, must include all members of the communities at best or in the very least as many of the members as practicable. The challenges faced by public health officials in their pursuit of the services indicated above can be divided into two major parts; shared constituent leadership and shared ownership. Shared constituent leadership entails both the acceptability of the programs by the members of a community, the bilateral exchanging of ideas on how the services ought to be carried out and mutual decision-making structures (Shi & Johnson, 2014, P. 393) . In many cases, the healthcare provider tasked with the aforesaid public health obligation is considered an outsider ab initio. This creates a need for a local connection to introduce the program to the community in an acceptable manner. In many cases, different members of the community consider issues of public health differently based mainly on cultural issues. This complicates the introductory part. It is upon proper introduction that a proper flow of information can ensue, leading to mutual decision-making systems. A policy solution to this problem would include having a public health team, which reflects t he cultural and demographic attributes of the community and where possible comprising of members of that community. 

Shared ownership comes later but is more challenging as it entails having the members of the community provide their share of resources necessary for carrying out the public health programs. These resources include time and money, and communities who are even reluctant to consider accepting the programs would be much more reluctant to give their resources to the program. A solution for this problem can be based on policy development through the creation of public health programs that require as little resources from the community as possible more so in financial terms (Shi & Johnson, 2014, P. 394) . 

Question 2: Tools Used to Address Performance Challenges in Public Health 

The first level of performance challenges in public health issues relates to the individual members of the community and their cooperation with the public health systems. Public health is critical and vital to any community thus objections against it and lack of cooperation can only emanate from ignorance. To resolve this problem of ignorance, two tools have been put in place by the federal government. These are the Healthy People 2020 program, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Healthy Communities Program (HCP) which is however currently dormant (Shi & Johnson, 2014, P. 403) . These are informal training courses on public health issues and their importance. They are mainly based on information available online for course material that is easy enough for lay consumption. The basic idea behind these tools is the concept that having more voices within the community who are more informed about the importance of public health will enhance community cooperation. Further the quality of this cooperation will be enhanced by knowledge. 

The second level of challenges is the cooperation between the several organizations and agencies that cater for public health issues. There is also the issue of cooperation within systems which include the federal, state and local levels. Among the tools used for this is Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) (Shi & Johnson, 2014, P. 372) . MAPP enables cooperation by arriving at an order of priority for the health issues relating to a particular community. All the organizations and entities involved in public health programs can, therefore, find congruency in their approach to a particular community. Another tool is the National Public Health Performance Standards (NPHPS) that is superintended by the CDC (Shi & Johnson, 2014, P. 374) . This creates a unified format for assessment of capabilities and standards thus allowing the different entities to operate under similar rules. 

Reference 

Shi, L., & Johnson, J. A. (Eds.). (2014). Novick & Morrow’s public health administration: Principles for population-based management (3rd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett