A crucial element when building and sustaining healthy communities leans towards community-based research that will define the needs and identify workable solutions that will look at improving the health of the public. By involving the community in public health planning ensures that their health needs are met as it refers back to the first-hand information from community members. As stated by White, Stallones, & Last (2013, p.75), community efforts will look at promoting healthy living for all people of all ages, which will make the difference in their health outcomes for a long time.
By engaging members of the community, their overall public health is improved and this makes a big difference. Organizations like the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) are promoting healthy community living through evidence-based practices. The mission of AMREF ensures that access and delivery of good health is attained and this is how the core base of the organization manages to tackle health issues (White, Stallones & Last, 2013). The success of AMREF has been due to the fact that they utilize strategic thinking, promote worldwide good-health, and encourage both social development and public health policies. As such, it is a good example to learn from with regard to encouraging other communities to improve their public health issues.
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Broad Strategic Thinking
The elements of broad strategic thinking employed by AMREF have enabled the organization to be empowered and achieve their mission. In terms of public health, the elements of broad strategic thinking include: 1) Healthy public policy, 2) Social development, and 3) Systems development for health and social policy plus other related programming (White, Stallones & Last, 2013, p.91). It is in AMREF’s mission and action that we see all these elements of strategic thinking being embodied.
The element of social development in AMREF is evident through the networking present in communities. All members of the community work together with health professionals in accessing their fundamental right, which is good health (Duncan & Farmer, 2012). The socio-ecological model has been seen to appreciate how people relate to one another based on individual, family and community relationships versus that of the larger society (White, Stallone & Last, 2013). The model serves an analytical framework by which prevention strategies are designed, implemented, monitored, and evaluated. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has used this model effectively to serve their community or population.
The element of systems development looks at AMREF as a health systems development agency for other countries. The operations of the organization reflect on the disease burdens at the grassroots level of the community by looking at people’s hygiene, sanitation, water, and malaria among others. The partnerships formed have seen AMREF succeed in promoting primary health care in communities. Improving people’s health is their priority and does this by examining their determinants such as culture, politics, environments, economics, leadership and others.
The community health model of AKU addressed social development aspects because they are core determinants of health outcomes. Therefore, they are needed in designing and evaluating interventions to be used in attaining good healthy policies (White, Stallones & Last, 2013). Some of the interventions noted include the availability of contraceptive choices, iron supplementation in pregnancy, hygiene education, and the access to emergency obstetric care. Social development aspects include goals of health and well-being by looking at factors such as educational, social and economic policies that help in maintaining social inequalities present in societal groups. This is possible through voluntary organizations as they are able to respond to the arising needs of the community. Through voluntarism, people are empowered meaning they are given a sense of belonging and purpose. Active involvement of community-based organizations is a well-motivated resource recognized by governments for social development. They have seen the need of accommodating new ways of working and incorporate tools of government to help in social development like the promotions of self-help, and innovative tax policies and grants.
Healthy public policy mentioned in the article rests heavily on links between socio-economic factors and health. These relationships have shown the importance of improving socio-economic conditions leads to improved health. Policies in use are beyond health services with the potential of improving health as they look at improving health determinants such as socio-economic conditions like income, employment, housing, and many others. The primary prevention looks at promoting healthy living while secondary and tertiary prevention is that of accessing affordable health care. World Health Organization’s (WHO) described healthy public policy by looking at enhancing the quality of life through making communities conducive to healthy living (White, Stallones & Last, 2013, p.96). Examples of healthy public policy are easy access to setting for sport, exercise, and physical activity, providing recreational facilities and resources, and designing dwellings that are amenable for good living.
Community-based programs established by AMREF are mentioned in the article plus other strategies were also designed that reached out to people outside their traditional health care settings. For instance, the “leaky tin technology” aimed at tacking the infectious cause of blindness by reducing transmission. AMREF attained this by applying WHO’s SAFE protocol. The settings were able to incorporate worksites, health care facilities such as clinics as well as communities.
It is possible to think locally by scaling-up interventions that will have a lasting impact on larger populations. By localizing health care design solutions, the intended programs will be meeting the needs of particular communities. All this is possible if the health interventions are intended to serve the community in question. Leadership and governance needs to be strong because they will ensure that the community is actively engaged in the operations promoting public healthy living.
References
Duncan, M., & Farmer, P. (2012). Human rights and health systems development: Confronting
the politics of exclusion and the economics of inequality. Health Human Rights , 12(2), 1–
8.
White, F., Stallones, L., & Last, J. (2013). Global public health: Ecological foundations (1st ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
