Health Promotion
Introduction
Health is the state of being physically, psychologically and socially upright (Pender, Murdaugh, Parsons & others, 2006). As opposed to what many think, being healthy is not the state of not having a disease. Being healthy is one of the factors that enable people to be productive and fulfill their daily obligations. Health is one of the basic requirements of being alive for any human being and, therefore, should be held in high regard. There are several factors that determine whether a person leads a healthy live or not. These are the basic requirements such as food, shelter, and clothing. This is because with the absence of these, a person is bound to encounter psychological turmoil and even in some cases, serious health conditions. Food for example, has been known to cause many of the illnesses. Its absence may lead to malnutrition, while its presence may lead to lifestyle diseases such as type1 and type-2 diabetes. In this paper, we are going to analyze the role of nursing in health promotion.
Health promotion and its purpose
According to World Health Organization, health promotion is the process of helping people have control of factors that lead to a healthy life. Different strategies have been developed which serve as the guidelines for having a healthy community. The first strategy is to create an environment where people are able to exploit their full potential in order to acquire maximum health benefits (Davies & Macdowall, 2006). The move is in support of other factors such as educating people of healthy feeding and living habits in order to prevent some diseases such as the above mentioned lifestyle diseases. Building a public policy that enables an environment for people to live a healthy life is another factor in promoting health for the people. The best strategy that can be used to promote health is distributing information at personal level. Each individual is encouraged to understand that his/her contribution is paramount to having a healthy society. In addition, people should be made to understand the benefits of having a healthy society and how the benefits impact them at individual level. Apart from helping people develop control on factors promoting health, it is also the task of health promoters to ensure that the environment exists where these factors can be applied and let to work.
The role of nurses in health promotion
The nurses have an integral role to play in ensuring that health promotion is achieved and applied accordingly. This is done through capacity building in the task. Nurses build capacity through acquisition of the necessary skills and competencies acquired during their career and applying them at personal level by making the right and healthy choices (Davies & Macdowall, 2006). The nurses should also invest their time to evaluate health promotion strategies to ensure that they fit accordingly to their aim and objectives once initiated. The move helps evaluators to determine if the process was fit or not. Nurses can also lobby the existing political leaders as well as community leaders to help in mobilizing resources to help health promotion in the society they live in. Moreover, it is the duty of the nurse to identify the areas that need addressing when it comes to health promotion. This is because different places have different problems to deal with in terms of health needs. Some areas may have plenty of resources which the people do not know how to put in the right proportions to achieve a healthy life.
The nurse has different places where he/she can apply her skills to promote health. In collaboration in institutions such as schools, hospitals, online platforms and community participation, the nurse can achieve a lot in helping promote health ion the society.
Implementation strategies
In a health promotion project, implementation strategies rely on management principles and ability to monitor the progress in real life. Ensuring that high standards of the budget are met is also another key aspect of ensuring success. The key factors to consider in implementing the strategies are monitoring of the progress and identify any developing factors on the way. In addition, clear decision making protocol ensures that there are little problems in dealing with arising matters in the field or the platform chosen for health promotion (Pender, Murdaugh, Parsons & others, 2006). The process should also be accompanied with constant collection and recording of data which is later top be analyzed to help strategize for the future.
There are three levels of health promotion. These are primary health promotion, secondary level and tertiary level of health care (Hubley & Copeman, 2013). The primary level of health promotion seeks to prevent the onset of diseases by educating and taking steps that help prevent the infection. It involves activities such as counseling of people at risk, having publicity campaigns that alert people of existence of particular epidemics, and providing information on healthy feeding habits. The secondary level of health promotion involves testing and treating of the illnesses in the patients while the tertiary level involves follow up activities that help mitigate the effects of the disease and its trend over time.
Conclusion
In health promotion, everyone beginning with the medical practitioners to the population should realize the role he/she has to play to ensure that the society lives a healthy life. Most people living in the society do not realize their role in keeping the living conditions healthy while much medical staff does not know another role they can play apart from handling patients in the hospitals. In addition, the three levels of health promotion are integral in preventing, handling and forecasting the trend in order to prepare for illnesses better in the future.
References
Davies, M., & Macdowall, W. (2006). Health promotion theory (1st ed.). Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Hubley, J., & Copeman, J. (2013). Practical health promotion (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity.
Pender, N., Murdaugh, C., & Parsons, M. (2006). Health promotion in nursing practice. Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ:.