Question

 Briefly discuss the role of communities and other sectors in promoting health with the help of suitable example.

Answer 1

HEALTH PROMOTION

This is the process to enable people to increase their control over their health and improve it

.

COMMUNITY HEALTH

This is the public health branch that mainly focuses on the impact of population health by the physical environment.

CLASSIFICATION

According to different level and approach towards the community or population group, this can be classified into 3 categories:

Primary healthcare and primary prevention

Primary health care is provided by health professional.Primary prevention means early detection and identification of risk factors that lead to various diseases and disabilities.

This can be attained by various approaches like :

Immunizations

Classroom teaching

Awareness campaigns

Secondary healthcare and secondary prevention

Community health improvement is directly related to the improvement in an individual’s environment.

Secondary preventions mean an improvement in the patient’s behavior after diagnosis of disease

.

Example

Occupational low back pain

Asthma

Hypertension

Tertiary healthcare

In this type of health, care patient needs advanced medical treatment by specialists.

Health inequalities are directly related to social advantage and social resources.

Various approaches for health promotion

1. Conceptual approach
2. Setting based approach or system approach

CONCEPTUAL APPROACH

This approach divides the population into 4 groups:

HEALTHY POPULATION

Their emphasis is on:

• Promote healthy lifestyle
• Prevent risk factors
• Prevention of disorder

POPULATION WITH RISK FACTORS

Aim is to:

• Health promotion and screening
• Maintain healthy lifestyle
• Consider risk factors

POPULATION WITH SYMPTOMS

Target is :

• Early detection
• Treatment and care
• Maintain a healthy lifestyle
• Disability limitation and rehabilitation

POPULATION WITH KNOWN DISORDER

• Treatment and care
• Maintain a healthy lifestyle
• Disability limitation and rehabilitation

HEALTH PROMOTION IN COMMUNICABLE DISEASE

Example of communicable disease is malaria.

malaria can be prevented by the regular and proper use of Insecticide-treated bed nets on an individual level health promotion

examples of non communicable diseases

• cardiovascular diseases
• diabetes mellitus

SETTING APPROACH

This approach includes:

Health-promoting schools

This approach is based on the consideration that health is essential for learning and development.

Their aim is to:

Provide a healthy school environment

Skills-based health education

Provision of safe drinking water

Proper sanitation

Healthy workplace

Healthy working environment is directly related to better health outcomes for the employees.

Answer 2

Role of communities : Communities plays a major role over the health of the individuals. For example whether they have the facility of park for play and yoga etc, whether they have proper resources for garbage disposal, is there any health care services nearby.

If there is faciltity for physical fitness people in that community will be fit. If they have proper resources for garbage disposal there will be less chances of food borne diseases, if there are health care services nearby emergency care can be given to the sick.

Role of other sectors : Other sectors can also improve the health of the individuals. For example if an I.T company gives resources for play, music , healthy food , cruch etc. It will improve overall physical and mental helath of the individuals working there.

Answer 3

Health promotion is defined by WHO as "the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health and its determinants, and thereby improve their health ". Communities and other sectors play a vital role in health promotion. Some reputed organizations like Rotary Club and Lion's Club are known to be running free medical camps for the needy population especially in rural community areas of developing countries with the active support and participation of respective communities. Throughout the world, communities are encouraged and empowered by respective governments to actively participate in health promotion campaigns. Social goals such as health literacy for all are being implemented with the help of communities and various NGOs which represents them. To cite an example, the Government Of India launched a mission to make a clean India and named the program as : "Swatch Bharath" can be translated as Clean India. Everybody easily understands the importance of cleanliness in health care, and the role it plays in health promotion. This program which was a massive success in terms of popularity and effectiveness has been noted with the collaboration of various sectors. Corporate India, Small and Medium Enterprises, Political organizations and parties, NGOs and educational institutions actively promoted the 'Swatch Bharat'  campaign, stressing on the positive impact it can have on HEALTH OF PEOPLE. Local civil bodies and Local Government  Departments were instrumental in ensuring the implementation of the program at their respective communities.

Answer 4

Ans) Today, there is a global acceptance that health and social well being are determined by a lot of factors which are outside the health system which include inequities due to socioeconomic political factors, new patterns of consumption associated with food and communication, demographic changes that affect working conditions, learning environments, family patterns, the culture and social fabric of societies; sociopolitical and economic changes, including commercialization and trade and global environmental change.

- To counter the challenges due to the changing scenarios such as demographic and epidemiological transition, urbanization, climate change, food insecurity, financial crisis, etc. health promotion has emerged as an important tool; nevertheless the need for newer, innovative approaches cannot be understated.

- A multisectoral, adequately funded, evidence-based health promotion program with community participation, targeting the complex socioeconomic and cultural changes at family and community levels is the need of the hour to positively modify the complex socioeconomic determinants of health.

Promoting Physical Activity as a Way of Life:

- Example: As a parent, you need to encourage healthy habits—including exercise—in your youngsters. Physical activity should become as routine a part of their lives as eating and sleeping.

- Reassure them that sports such as cycling (al­ways with a helmet), swimming, basketball, jogging, walking briskly, cross country skiing, dancing, aerobics, and soccer, played regularly, are not only fun but can promote health. Some sports, like baseball, that require only spo­radic activity are beneficial in a number of ways, but they do not promote fit­ness. Physical activity can be healthful in the following ways:

- Increase Cardiovascular Endurance:

More Americans die from heart dis­ease than any other ailment; regular physical activity can help protect against heart problems. Exercise can improve your child's fitness, make him feel bet­ter, and strengthen his cardiovascular system.

Aerobic activity can make the heart pump more efficiently, thus reducing the incidence of high blood pressure. It can also raise blood levels of HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol, the "good" form of cholesterol that re­moves excess fats from the bloodstream. Even though most cardiovascular diseases are thought to be illnesses of adulthood, fatty deposits have been de­tected in the arteries of children as young as age three, and high blood pres­sure exists in about 5 percent of youngsters.

At least three times a week, your middle-years child needs to exercise con­tinuously for twenty to thirty minutes at a heart rate above his resting level. As a guideline, the effort involved in continuous brisk walking is adequate to maintain fitness.

Each exercise session should be preceded and followed by a gradual warm-up and cool-down period, allowing muscles, joints, and the cardiovascular sys­tem to ease into and out of vigorous activity, thus helping to guarantee a safe workout. This can be accomplished by stretching for a few minutes before and after exercise.

- Improve Large Muscle Strength and Endurance: As your child's muscles become stronger, he will be able to exercise for longer periods of time, as well as protect himself from injuries—strong muscles provide better support for the joints. Modified sit-ups (knees bent, feet on the ground) can build up ab­dominal muscles, increase lung capacity, and protect against back injuries. For upper body strength, he can perform modified pull-ups (keeping the arms flexed while hanging from a horizontal bar) and modified push-ups (position­ing the knees on the ground while extending the arms at the elbow).

- Increase Flexibility: For complete physical fitness, children need to be able to twist and bend their bodies through the full range of normal motions with­out overexerting themselves or causing injury. When children are flexible like this, they are more agile.

Although most people lose flexibility as they age, this process can be retarded by stretching to maintain suppleness throughout life, beginning in childhood. Stretching exercises are the best way to maintain or improve flexibility, and they can be incorporated into your child's warm-up and cool-down routines.

In most stretching exercises, your child should stretch to a position where he begins to feel tightness but not pain, then hold steady for twenty to thirty seconds before relaxing. He should not bounce as he stretches, since this can cause injury to the muscles or tendons.

- Maintain Proper Weight: Twelve percent of children in the pre-puberty years are overweight, but few of these youngsters are physically active. Exercise can effectively burn calories and fat and reduce appetite.

Ask your pediatrician to help you determine whether your youngster has a healthy percentage of body fat for his or her age and sex.

- Reduce Stress: Unmanaged stress can cause muscle tightness, which can con­tribute to headaches, stomachaches, and other types of discomfort. Your child needs to learn not only to recognize stress in his body but also to diffuse it effectively. Exercise is one of the best ways to control stress. A physically ac­tive child is less likely to experience stress-related symptoms than his more sedentary peers.

Answer 5

Answer: The role of communities and other sectors in promoting health as the community helps in elevating the health condition at the state, national as well as local level. The proper information and awareness among community can eliminate the risk of disease development. For example, obesity is one of the major problem among people. So, increase in the awareness among people to adopt healthy lifestyle. This adoption can promote the health of the community and individual. Hence elimination of risk of disease development can be achieved. So, it helps in promoting the health of the patients, community as well as people.

Answer 6

Health is a complete state of wellbeing physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually not mere in the absence of disease or infirmity. To have the holistic health approach an individual must be satisfied with all the aspects of health when any one of the aspect lacks behind may lead to illness. One of the key aspect which influences the health would be socio economic status. This socio economic factors would include employment, education and income which are integrated with each other for instance the employment of an individual reflects his income.

When we look into the ancient times the disease were classified based on the economic status of the individuals for example all the communicable disease and the dreadfully disease were taking the lives of people with lower socio economic status due their insufficient access to health care services and their housing and income. While the chronic diseases which are non communicable such as diabetes, hypertension were associated with high class people.

Today too the statistics of morbidity and mortality if people with lower economic class face the problems and more vulnerable to the diseases due to poor nutrition in a view of their income which makes them immunosupresant to acquire more disease.

On the other hand the people with higher status also are equally affected due to their occupation, stress, life style practices leading them to have diabetes, CAD, hypertension, obesity and so on. This two scenario reflects the socio economic status and how the population utilises it irrespective of the status.

The lower socio economic status affect out community too wereby the society is affected indeed the health of the nation comes down.When it comes to the relation between health and income higher income buys better health care quality, more resources for goods and services results in the health care outcomes, parents will have better opportunity for their children to enhance their health and will have better outcome. While turning to other side on lower status their health services is not utilised and even the children will not have much opportunity of good health.

Thus socio economic status will determine the person's health and the people with lower status should utilise the benefits of health by government in order to access to health care and maintain the health in order to improve health and life span.

Answer 7

Ans) Protecting and improving the health of communities through education, promotion of healthy lifestyles, and research for disease and injury prevention.

- Schools, hospitals/clinics, public/community health agencies, and business/industry are the places where majority of specialist work.

- There is a stronger need for prevention instead of treatment because treatment is more costly. We decrease mortality and morbidity rates, as well as save health cost dollars.

- The process of identifying the specific responsibilities, competencies, and sub-competencies associated with the practice of health education/promotion; became a difference between school health education and community health education.

- Example of role of health educator:

1) Assess Needs, Assets, and Capacity for Health Education
2) Plan Health Education
3) Implement Health Education
4) Conduct Evaluation and Research Related to Health Education
5) Administer and Manage Health Education
6) Serve as a Health Education Resource Person
7) Communicate and Advocate for Health and Health Education.

Answer 8

Health is a complete state of physical, psychological, spiritual wellbeing not merely in absence of disease or infirmity. The aspect any one above if not satisfied will lead to alternation in the health. In the above factors of health aspects the socio economic status plays a very important role in the health of an individual. The socio economic status that determine health are: employment, education and income each are interrelated but does not overlap.

While we have a glimpse on our olden days the diseases were classified by the population based on their economic status. For instance if any communicable diseases such as leprosy, TB, chicken pox all these were considered to be the poor man diseases whereas the non communicable disease such as hypertension, diabetes were been considered as rich man disease.

Now when we look into todays scenario though the diseases are not classified as such but most of the disease affects the people with lower socioeconomic status because of inadequate housing, nutrition and the awareness regarding the enhancement of health. Thus the people with poor housing, sanitation, nutrition are more prone and vulnerable to acquire the diseases and the statistics rate of TB, pneumonia, leprosy reports with poor housing and lower socio economic status. Considering on the higher economic factors due to the life style changes, occupation, stress, over nutrion which is not balanced are also leading people to have the non communicable disease which in turn makes them to have the permanent disability. The positivity of this higher class would be if they chose to provide adequate nutrition balanced.

The people with lower status will have also less access to health care services due to the income as well. The nutritional problems and acquiring health issues of children are more reported in the lower socioeconomic group than others.

Thus socio economic status is the major aspect which has to be completely satisfied in an individual to meet the health needs. If various schemes and programmes available to access the health care should be educated to the population.

Answer 9

Socioeconomic status can affect the health of an individual. According to WHO, social and economic factors are the important determinants of health. The employment, education and income are the 3 important socioeconomic factors which affects the health of an individual.  

The employment has an impact on physical and emotional health status of a patient. For example, a patient works in a nuclear plant has more likely to get affected with nuclear radiation. A traffic cops is more prone for respiratory illness because of air pollution. A sales manager who has monthly target to meet is at a risk of stress related illness like hypertension.

Education is another socioeconomic factor which affects the health status. Better educated individual may seek better health services. If the person is educated, he may try to get more information about the health issues of interest and mostly the person tries to follow the changes required in the functional health pattern. For example, an educated hypertensive patient may better adhered to the treatment regimen as he aware about the side effects.

Income is an important socioeconomic factor which determines the health status. The high or moderate income group can better afford the health services . The higher income group can afford better health services, better environment, good food, good hygienic practices, better living style and amenities, better education etc. For example, a higher income group patient with neurological deficit can afford meeting a therapist or rehabilitation therapists than a patient with lower income

Answer 10

Socioeconomic status affect health because if the socioeconomic status is low it can cause decrease in food availability and cause malnutrition . Some socioeconomic factors include Malnutrition is largely the byproduct of poverty , ignorence , low education , large family size , loW sanitory environment, upper socioeconomic status score is 26-29.

Upper middle socioeconomic score is 16-25.lower middle socioeconomic score is 11-15. Upper lower socioeconomic score is 5-10.lower socioeconomic score is 01-04.these scale are under modified kuppuswami scale.

Answer 11

Answer :

• Socio economic factors are important determinants of health and well being .
• We all know that high economic status have better health compared to low economic status .
• For example ,if We take the people who are having high economic status have high literacy , high quality of life ,high sanitation and high housing condition can lead to better health .
• People who are having low income ,they can't go For education , poor housing and sanitary conditions can lead to poor health .
• Malnutrition is major public health problem in low income people and they are prone to get common infectious diseases frequently and they wont have money to treat their illness in early stages .
• Poor people are suffering with many health problems than rich people .
• People who are having high income status also getting some of the non communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension etc
• Diabetes is called rich man disease, because people with high economic status eat much food without knowing recommended dietary allowances .
• So high income people also getting diseases .