A Health Advocacy Plan - Coursework Example

DEVELOPING A HEALTH POLICY CAMPAIGN The human body is susceptible to many diseases, conditions and ailments due to the people’s varying lifestyles. According to MedinePlus (2014), “Obesity means having too much body fat” (1). It is not an issue to do with excess weight. In the latter, an individual is simply weighing more than necessary. The excess body weight can be attributed to many muscles, a lot of fat among others. In every individual, there are recommended weight levels against certain heights. A person having less or more weight that’s not equivalent to his/her height creates a healthy issue. Every time an individual consumes excess calories that what the body requires, obesity sets in. No one admires to be obese. People with obesity have high probabilities of suffering from heart diseases as well as other dangerous diseases. But what exactly causes obesity? Besides hereditary factors, overeating plays a key role in causing obesity. Similarly consumption of foods that have high fat content and decreased physical activity, are also prime causes of this condition. Whether in children or grown-ups, obesity is undesirable. In both cases, there are far reaching health concerns, which inconvenience people’s social and economic lifestyles. Identifying A Problem In US, children obesity cases pose a great challenge. Studies have shown that at least one third of children in America including adolescents are facing obesity. Statistics have shown that obesity is on a rapid increase, “Over the past 30 years, the prevalence of obesity has nearly tripled for children 2 to 5 years of age and youth 12 to 19 years of age, and it has quadrupled for children 6 to 11 years old.” (AHA conference proceedings 2014, 1) We have had highly effective programs advocating for the issues of obesity in children, these programs have proved very effective in a number of ways. In the literature review in the advocacy program by the nurses, the following approaches which made it effective (Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity, 2006). These skills that nurses employed to prevent obesity were good, they put in place a number critical issues. They considered prevention levels that were good enough for the child, and the family among other important considerations. The obesity prevention strategy was taken to be a health tool. There were advocacy skills involved in planning and strategizing on preventive measures within the community and the entire population. (Online journal of issues in nursing, 2009) In overall, many of the advocacy programs that were initiated were effective because of willing of partners that were interested in the issues of child obesity. Various local, national, regional and international bodies are trying their best to combat the problem of child obesity. However, despite all this massive efforts there is still a dire need for robust advocacy into this very issue, if we can enjoy a healthy future generation. It’s an issue that calls our due attention. An Health Advocacy Plan The new advocacy campaign plan will be called; Obesity warfare for a healthy future, the new campaign will operate on the following objectives; To sensitize the community about the dangers associated with obesity in young children and adolescents. To initiate preventive measures against obesity To offer guidance and counseling to parents and children who are encountering the issue of obesity. The current public health issue is the need to reduce the rising cases of child obesity in the American society (Department of health, 2014). Despite of the massive investments that have been made towards this issue, the concept still demands for more and different strategies. This is the reason for creating a health campaign that seeks to incorporate the ideas that had been tried before and new concepts. This health campaign will only change the existing one. This policy campaign will call for the support of many stakeholders. For proper success, it will have to be accepted and adopted by health departments in the country. Letters will be drafted to this effect an sent to the respective departments that bare vital, there will be stakeholders meetings that will be organized with the purpose of drumming up support for its implementation. At the community level, there will be focus groups whose main aim will be to collect views from the grassroots about people’s perceptions towards child obesity, including their interactions and participating into any related advocacy programs. With regard to policy papers, the campaign will initiate policy papers into the national assembly to discuss the alarming rates of obese cases. The policy paper will contain the recommendations into methods of countering the issue, funding for the implementation of the programs, ways of evaluation into the effectiveness of the campaign programs among other issue of prime significance. Careful attention is paid to the fact that we have had other effective programs before. To this effect, we are aiming at supplementing these efforts with the hope that we can end up with immeasurable success towards combating this issue and for all. A lot will be borrowed from these programs to be incorporated in this campaign, some of the positive attributes expected to be borrowed including; the social marketing tools to be employed. Some of the previous programs that have been successful had wonderful social marketing. With social marketing, a person is needed to have possess a great comprehension of the audience. People have varying needs in different degrees, in order to understand and draw their attention to your concept, you need to tackle it from the side, this means understanding them first. This gives you the strategy of selling your idea without fear of contradiction or compromise. Another important attribute that is very essential is the leadership skills. In order to have a successful program, the coordination of the system is very important, all parties must be reading from the same page, it is only through this process that the set objectives can be achieved successfully. “The ability to lead change whether at the individual, family, or community level is an important skill of expert nurses” (Online journal of issues in nursing, 2009 36). Collaborative leadership will be best suited for this very matter. This is where a common leadership model will be adopted. In overall the campaign is set for huge exploits where others have seen setbacks. Legal considerations Implementation of the policy satisfactorily will require important aspects of the official structure. Other programs that have not been successful have been faced by various challenges. The existing legal framework with regard to obesity and its advocacy may not be blamed for the failure of these programs. Most of them, their shortcoming have been in administration issues, human resource management and planning. Financial matters also played an important role, some of the programs went short of financing and this hampered their implementations. The existing laws in fact make it possible for successful implementation of any health campaign that has good planning. For this reason, we may not need to change much of the existing laws. With the existing laws, this campaign will be able to access funding from within and without. If it were restrictive, then it would have been difficult to obtain assistance from like-minded internal and external partners. The free system within people can interact will make it easy for community mobilization to happen. In this campaign many people within the community will be reached, either for consultation purposes or as respondents in the various research activities that will be conducted. Currently it is possible to get data from health institutions and other government health organs. Rules regarding access to information in online and other electronic platforms will be helpful in social marketing and access of information needed for this campaign. The policy makers for this country have done it good in this sector, there is a lot to be desired and which we expect will make our campaign to be very successful, however, there are still a few critical things that need to be worked out. This brings the need to create policy papers for discussion and adoption by the legislators which will add impetus to our health policy campaign. Influencing legislators will be a great challenge; however we have projected a number of strategies that will help us to work it out. First, through the parliamentary sub committees on health, we are planning to participate in the public forums that are usually held so that we’ll be able to start the process of having our idea known. In order to participate in these forums, we understand that it is more sensible to have facts and figures about the arguments. For this reason, a team will be specially selected to look into the cases of obesity and how they are being handled by state health facilities. Heart diseases centers have been proposed as examples of institutions that will give us the much needed statistics of how many minors are being affected, the conditions they are living in and other issues. With extensive lobbying we are sure that we will be able t get the numbers that will help us to pass through our policy papers on obesity. It is going to be a robust campaign and therefore we have to ensure that we are abiding by the constitution. Since it’s a general concern, we hope that legislators will find it suitable to accept our proposition and help us to realign our health campaign. We hope to use the concept of the “three legs of lobbying” to reach, not only the legislators but other important organs that will be key to our success. In order to succeed in lobbying, Amidei (2014) asserts, “You need to cover all the three legs of the stool alone.” (6). The three pillars of the stool will be sought after i.e. the legislative advocacy, the media and the party forming grassroots mobilization. With all this parts, there will be special teams that are well able to handle the particular issues in the three areas so that we have no conflict of ideas. We have a pool of experts in the legislative division, the media as well as community social workers who are able to establish mobilizers and other important groups for ultimate achievemt of the intended goals. We expect to meet a few obstacles, which we have set forth measures that will help us to counter them and emerge successful. First, other interested groups would want to push through their policy campaigns. We consider this issue as very critical, and therefore in order to help us on this, we have decided to get our records satisfied by the relevant state bodies. We hope to obtain recommendations reports from local health and administrative units to certify that we have done adequate research about the community’s need and we have the needed capacity in providing the much needed solution. We have been able to seek legal advice and documentation various lawyers and advocates. This will make us to counter the legal obstacles that are bound to arise. These lawyers have been very helpful in assisting us to draft policy documents and other instruments in the legal field; with this, we expect to counter the challenges in making such documents and mounting serious arguments in public health forums and public sittings of the legal sub-committees of health (MedPline, 2011). Generally, we are well prepared to have our health campaign rolled out massively in the whole country. We believe that there is nothing that can stop a noble course. The fact other campaigns were tried and failed is itself a great motivation in that if they were able to be initiated, then they would have succeeded, by correcting the pitfalls, we are sure to make through and improve the future generation. Ethical considerations This is a professional undertaking and it should be duly governed with respect to matters of codes of ethics. As professional we shall be guided by the prescribed ethics and follow them to the latter. Since we shall be dealing with many kinds of people, we expect to come across crucial information that may be confidential to respondents or other people, in the event our staff may find it strange dealing with them, then we will conduct seminars to sensitize people about the issues. As a matter of fact, there will be workshops with experts in the legal sector who will be invited regularly to shed light on them and their implementation mechanisms. In this workshops member will be expose not only not ethical issues, but also to legal provisions that relate to our public health campaigns. It will be important to know the due process to be taken in case there will be violation of these ethics, or where someone’s rights are infringed. With children obesity, there are various ethical issues that we will have to be careful with. There are some parents that are completely unaware about the proper care that is needed for their children. This ignorance has been the cause of increasing case of obesity in children. This will be a big challenge for us to handle, where we will realize that some caregivers are exposing their children to obesity, intentionally or not then we will take action in the best interest of the child. This will be the reason for calling for workshops not only to our campaigns but also to the community caregivers. Child obesity advocacy faces critical ethical issues. The need for a healthy campaign is so as to enable health experts provide more personalized intervention measures towards rectifying the problem. Kersch et al (2011,) says that it is general knowledge that one of the duties of the state is to take responsibility over health welfare of the people. Over the past, the government has been the single authority in this issue, but the red tapes associated with the government has left loopholes that have allowed cases of childhood obesity to increase (Berkowitz & Borchard, 2009). It is therefore in our best interest to be closer to the children, provide the much helpful advice, and remedy into this issue. For instance, there are serious challenges that face children. These challenges have made most of them to end up consuming foods that end up harming them. Knowing that children are vulnerable and do not know the complain mechanisms, some companies deliberately fail to indicate calorie content on the foods that they manufacture. Worse still is the fact that other companies cheat on the contents. Fast foods are a good example. This is an unethical issue challenge, which we expect to raise with manufacturing companies through the various channels. There are established paths for reporting and complaining which we will adopt. Consumer federations and court process will be our key instruments, we will advise parents and young people about how to cite such anomalies and the various ways to report and address the issues (Mandy, 2011). One of the main challenges in the legislative process will be convincing the legislators to put less or no taxes to foods that have the required nutritional content. In actual sense, there should be heavy taxation on those foods that are sold and have low nutritional content. This is bound to be a key challenge since a tax system of any country if meant to be fair and have an element of equality. Our argument will be that, it is unlawful to sacrifice the lives of the many just because we need to have equality. Every country esteems a healthy future. Therefore, it should be in the best interests of the citizens that systems are made for them. With facts and figures to substantiate we will prove our arguments right. There has been an increasing discrimination against children with special needs. When obese children cannot be able to access normal education because of their condition, then it becomes a special need. There has been increased segregation of such children from normal schools and other amenities. For this reason, we expect that it will be challenging having legislators amend rules regarding the rights of such children, we expect much tougher penalties against any parties that are found discriminating children with obesity or other related conditions. Policy issues created, ‘are required to create healthy environments for children and to ensure that all children have a healthy life.’ (Paula et al 2011, 9) We will try be very all inclusive so that all the interested parties are equally represented. Parents need to be held responsible for some their children’s lifestyles that end up affecting their children. As a matter of fact, Paula et al (2011, 16) puts it that ‘No dialogue about ethical interventions in the treatment of childhood obesity would be complete without including the role of family, particularly parents, in influencing their child’s diet and physical activity.’ For this reason, we will want the legislative organ to also make laws that will make the care givers to seek information about the welfare of their children with respect to obesity. It should be a rule that parents attend workshops and seminars regarding obesity and other health conditions for their children. This will make it easy for us to disseminate our crucial information to them regarding our health care campaign on obesity. We look forward for success, and a vibrant health care campaign against obesity. References Amidei, N. 2014. Three legs of lobbying; Retrieved from; < http://thrivebyfivewa.org/wp-content/uploads/Three_Legs_of_the_Advocacy_Stool.pdf> Berkowitz, B & Borchard, M. (2009). Advocating for the Prevention of Childhood Obesity: A Call to Action for Nursing. Prevention of Childhood Obesity. 14(1), Retrieved from< http://nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol142009/No1Jan09/Prevention-of-Childhood-Obesity.html> Department of health (2014). Preventing Childhood Obesity: Tips for Parents; Retrieved from; < https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/nutrition/resources/obparnts.htm> Kersch et al 2011. Childhood Obesity: A Framework for Policy Approaches and Ethical Considerations. Prev Chronic Dis 2011:8(5):A93 Retrieved from; < http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2011/sep/10_0273.htm?s_cid=pcd85a93_e&source=govdelivery> Mandy, P. 2011. Ethical Family Interventions for Childhood Obesity. Prev Chronic Dis 2011; 8(5):A99 Retrieved from; < http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2011/sep/11_0038.htm?s_cid=pcd85a99_e&source=govdelivery> MedPline. 2014, Obesity. Retrieved from; Paula et al. 2011 Children with Special Health Care Needs: Acknowledging the Dilemma of Difference in Policy Responses to Obesity. Prev Chronic Dis 2011; 8(5):A95 Retrieved from; < http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2011/sep/10_0285.htm?s_cid=pcd85a95_e&source=govdelivery> Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity. 2006: How Do We Measure Up? Washington, DC. Institute of Medicine Report Brief. Retrieved from: < http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/36/984/11722_reportbrief.pdf. Stephen et al 2014. AHA conference proceedings. Circulation. 2009; 119: 2114-2123 Retrieved from; < http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/119/15/2114.full > Read More