The Issues Related to Healthy Living - Essay Example

? Community development The paper is set to examine a community and the issues related to healthy living. The community refers to a group of people that share the same geographical or physical location under study by health practitioners. The introduction gives the basis of discussion by defining some of the terms to be discussed here. The introduction also gives a brief description of the problem at hand and the relevant case; the responsibility bestowed on a community health worker, who seeks to reduce the factors that contribute to heart diseases in the community. The body will relate health promotion to community development with the aim of creating awareness and empowering people in the community under study to be active partners in promoting healthy living and community development to realize a health society. There is a conclusion to be drawn concerning the knowledge, policy and evident issues under study to create a complete awareness program through health promotion strategies efforts. Introduction Studies show that a proper community development analysis will require the use of some critical terms. Firstly, community action involves the activities undertaken by people living under the same geographical location (a community) to lobby for change concerning health and in particular, a community free of disease, such as heart related health complications. A community in this case refers to a common bond based on common identity, geography or locality shared by a group of individuals (Innv?r and Vist 2002, p.39). It also refers to a group of people in a particular set up who share a common predicament or common interests. The efforts may involve the urging of relevant authorities to spearhead provision of health services, including the delivery of voluntary and self-help services that addresses the health issue at hand. It is important to note that community action for health involves a number of factors geared towards a better society. In simple terms, community action for health is where a group or groups of people with like minds recognize their common experiences in health issues and come together in discussion and review their common concerns (Burrows and Kendall 2003, p.62). In addition, the group takes stock of their situation to identify communal complications and share the process that will help clarify options as part of solutions. This allows the group to work out joint actions that are appropriate to set the process of creating change concerning the circumstances surrounding the group or community at large. Concerning community development, it involves the active involvement of the people in the community in matters that affect their daily lives. It involves power, knowledge, skills and experience sharing to address the issues at hand. Studies reveal that community development takes place both in the community of interest and its neighborhoods. On the other hand, there are a number of concepts of health held by community development workers. First, the concept of community participation is used to offers explanation as to why community engagement is helpful in addressing interpersonal and cultural aspects of individual and their immediate environment. Participation is where everybody gets mobilized and not on individual basis. Secondly, the concept of social ecology is used to gain insight into individual lives’ elements, which are crucial in promoting health. Finally, concept of community engagement is a process that involves working together as joined forces, with and through community groups united to sharing of the same geographical settings and similar situations that needs addressing. Issues approaches in community development. This process is collective and experience at hand boosts skills and knowledge among other aspects for each individual concerned. It is important to note that, community development seeks to empower individuals and the communities concerned to adopt change for growth according to their needs and priorities in relation to health at the pace that does not interfere with the environment and other groups dependent on the community in question. There are priorities associated with community development in a bid to meet its core goals (Bowen and Zwi 2005, p.69). This involves, empowering and enhancing the involved that may be at this point, deprived traditionally of control and powers concerning common matters around them (Albert, Fretheim and Maiga 2007, p.49). This process calls for people to act together in influencing social, political, environmental and economic matters that concern their lives, and thus promote health in the community (Peters et al 2007, p.40). Community development helps the society at hand by encouraging them to share and create structures that help to call for real involvement and participation of everyone to address needs of the community for mutual benefit. Through community development, studies indicate that, there is development of knowledge, experience, skills and power of the group of people concerned; this helps them to take their own initiatives to deal with environmental, economic, political, and social problems, including health issues. Community development needs to address clearly people`s attitudes and institutional practices including the society at large. Through community development, it should be possible to counter destructive forces that may damage natural environmental set up that is critical for every human being`s survival, which allows the promotion of health among people in the community. Health promotion and community development is a process that involves the provision of information and educating of groups of people; women groups for instance, about their health and how to live healthy life. It is used to create awareness on how to prevent illness from occurring among the people in the larger community; health promotion and community development has focus of supporting communities in taking charge of their own health. Community development creates social capital status; this process points out the importance of people working together in defining their goals while mobilizing resources through development of action strategies to address the immediate problems. Social capital; may simply be termed as, the interconnection that emanates from high end of communal identity and the associated occurrence of reciprocity, civil engagement, and trust. This comes through the existence of formal and informal civil engagement, community networks, sense of solidarity and equality with other communities (Acemoglu 2006, p.30). Studies indicate that social capital results from the participation by community members in activities such as; childcare arrangements involving neighbors, community group meetings, and neighborhood watch schemes. All these activities create social capital that will ultimately help in carrying out a community health worker`s remit in addressing heart disease problems. (Earle S et al 2007, p.50) Social capital is the gateway that allows involved parties to think about the broader determinants of health and in particular, disease contributing factors. Social capital creates avenues for influencing the health factors by employing community-based approaches that aims to reduce inequalities in wellbeing and health in general. To balance behavior and settings around which people live, social capital gives a leeway to achieve this. Integrated health promotion in the communities emphasizes on the efforts that strengthen the mechanisms that brings people together, interact and in the end take initiative to promote health in the community (Cohred 2005, p.38). This may take simple measures like, creation of training grounds for people to exercise, creation of space for people to meet and this may spear head provision of health information in an effort that will eventually change people`s behaviors for a healthier society. Studies also indicate that, through the efforts of service providers, social capital can be enhanced within a community through the support of community projects, which bring neighbors together in achieving mutually beneficial goals. For instance, beautifying of the environment around public housing, working with local sports clubs to encourage the parties involved in the community to value and participate in sporting activities, and by also establishing communal vegetable and fruit gardens to ensure provision of healthy foodstuffs (Ewles 2005, p.26). Concerning community development, there are approaches which helps a community such as that described by the community health worker to create awareness and help change people`s lifestyle by adopting healthy living ways. One of the major approaches that will help, change a community both in behavior and in lifestyle is the community based participatory research (The Innovative Health Research Group 2009, p.56). By definition, community based participatory research is geared towards social change by enhancing health and the quality of life in communities. It encourages varied research criterion by adhering to standardized ethical review processes. Communal needs and priorities are the driving forces that enhance building of programs that influence public policies. Studies indicate that community based participatory research approach seeks to address the breaches between concepts and models, perceived by health practitioners and the way community members perceive the reality of the problems at hand (Gonzalez-Block and Mills 2003, p.45). The basis of this approach is that, in order to come up with anti-despotic study, that fulfills social justice, it becomes critical that, perceptions, views, individual experiences, and the understanding of people`s knowledge on the receiving end of services should be valued, taken into account, appropriately acted upon to effect perceived changed. Participatory approaches is used mainly to create awareness by ensuring that individuals in the community affected by the research gain and retain control over the whole process till the end. The groups in the community should decide on the research question and decisions involved by determining who should be involved; the targeted individuals to get the information from the research. This allows a long-term investigation, and reflection process that advances community action (Hanney et al 2003, p.52). It is important to note that a few barriers may hinder the degree of involvement. This include; discriminatory attitudes, resource issues, access barriers, and generally representative matters. It is advantageous to use community based participatory research because; it builds on strengths and resources within the community to address the heart related diseases under study. The approach to do this and address shared health concerns within a community is achieved through individual skills and assets, network of relationships through cooperation, trust and communal commitment by mediating structures that community members congregate most. This effort seeks to support and expand social structures and societal process that enhance the working together of community members in improving health. Again, participatory research approach deals with collaborative partnership where all parties involved are equal and share control in all stages that the research takes (Lloyd et al 2007, p.75). Moreover, it helps to integrate skills and resources from both the neighborhood and the community itself. The most important aspect of this approach is that, it helps in integrating knowledge and action for communal benefit. This approach seeks to create a broad body of knowledge concerning health by integrating knowledge with the community and instituting social change efforts to address the concerns of the affected community. It enhances information collection to effect the action, through new understanding that emerges through reflection by participants on the actions taken to address the concerns at hand. In addition, participatory research approach addresses health from two critical perspectives; ecological and positive perspectives (Cohred 2000, p.25). It addresses the health concept through a more positive model, which puts emphasis on the use of an ecological model of health, which incorporates social, biomedical, economic, historical, and political aspects as major determinants of health and disease. This point out one of the many ways community health workers can relevantly instill health information into the community while positively influencing the society (van Kammen and de Savigny 2006, p.39). Reductionist approach to research This approach is based on philosophy and argues that no matter how complex an engagement may be, the constituents play a significant part and cannot be ignored. In regard to community development work, it is evident that the overall success of any project is ul;timatekly dependent on the different activities that add up to the main project Healthy Lives, Healthy People This approach strives to improve the health status and knowledge of various members of a society by ensuring that they live better lives. Despite this, challenges in attaing success are evident in that proper cooperation of all stakeholder is necessary in the realization of the anticipated goal; therefore, all member should actively play their role and appropriate strategies and policies be in place. Further still, community development involves the user involvement, and primary health care approach to address needs at hand. This is because, community development must recognize the basic economic, social, and environmental causes of ill health, especially heart diseases. Through this approach, community development workers, while equipped with relevant training help to unite local people to support and identify community networks that exist and improve health by pointing out health needs of affected groups and giving appropriate solutions (AHPSR 2007, p.35). Through social networks, support to the community is offered in a manner, which is more protective in relation to people`s health. This leads to reduced mortality, since there is a high level of trust through increased group membership. However, increase in morbidity is caused by lack of control, poor social support, and lack of self-control (WHO 2003, p.45). This requires the employment of needs assessment in order to identify solutions to problems experienced in the community. The other critical approach to community development is the evidence based policy approach. Evidence based policy is a public policy that is formed through demanding establishment of objective evidence. Studies indicate that it is the extension of evidence-based medicine in all areas relating to public policy; this approach employs scientific studies, such as randomized controlled trials that help in identifying programs and practices that help in improving relevant policies outcomes (Green and Bennett 2007, p.84). By getting policy and practice in addressing health inequalities, the need for the application of evidence to formulate proper approach is unavoidable. Inequalities seems to be the biggest challenge in promoting health in a community where no one cares about heart diseases and any other ill health related issues. Policy commitment is used by some countries, for instance Sweden, to bring about social equality or justice. This same tool is used to address health consequences of social and economic inequalities (WHO 2007, p.45). The United Kingdom has pioneered social policy reforms that have recently spearheaded the creation of modern welfare state that addresses social justice. Moreover, health policy and system research that aims at production of reliable evidence that informs in many critical decisions is necessary for health systems. Here stakeholders have the mandate of identifying challenges and providing possible intervention measures concerning health policy and systems research evidence in advancing policies for engaging the society into adoption of healthy living lifestyle and activities. Through this research, new knowledge that seeks to improve how the societies organize themselves in realizing health goals is presented. The knowledge is mostly produced through evidence related policy workshops spearheaded by research teams including the community members who participate in providing various supports to facilitate the success of the intended purpose (Young and Mendizabal 2009, p.23). Communication is a very important tool in the realization of a common goal; there should be proper communication between all parties involved in a community development project, so as to realize the anticipated goals. This ensures grassroots community work is carried effectively, which not only benefits the participants but also the entire population. In this regard, it is necessary to formulate and implement good infrastructure to ensure that communication is smooth and efficient. In encompassing the input of professionals, the structure should be very comprehensive to take heed of their professional input. This ensures that the community is able to adjust in accordance to the change in the environment in which it carries out its activities. In conclusion, every approach analyzed here seeks to associate the community members more in the introduction of change related to health. With this concern just as in the Pennywell Neighborhood Centre case study, the approaches push or eliminate barriers between concerned parties through ground creation for equal participation of individuals. This will help the community development worker in creating awareness that will help individuals in the concerned case to know and be able to contribute to health living and reduce the risks of such diseases as heart disease. References Acemoglu D 2006, "Training and Innovation in an Imperfect Labor Market." Review of Economic Studies 64: 445–64. Albert A, Fretheim A and Maiga D 2007, "Factors Influencing the Utilization of Research Findings by Health Policy-Makers in a Developing Country: The Selection of Mali's Essential Medicines," Health Research and Policy Systems 5: 2. Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR) 2007, "Briefing Note Number 1: What Is Health Policy and Systems Research and Why Does It Matter?" Geneva: World Health Organization. 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