Community Healthcare Issues Paper Example

Introduction

The people in the local community still face a vast number of healthcare quagmires both at the individual level and at the community level. This creates an urge to adopt better intervention methods to help curb or minimize the level of impact that the government and the society feel as a result of such factors. The three notable community healthcare issues include adult obesity, teenage pregnancy, and drug and substance abuse. They are discussed below.

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Obesity among adults, teenagers, and children

Obesity has been a critical problem to people of the local community for quite a long time. Studies show that this has not only been a problem for one particular community but also a nationwide concern. According to Hales et al. (2017), about 75% of men are either obese or overweight thereby, making the obesity condition a community health issue. The stunning thing is that the rate at which people become either obese or overweight is increasingly growing fast every year. The people in the community should pay attention to the kinds of food they take every day (Hales et al., 2017). The researchers suggest that people should avoid overeating fatty food but instead, eat more vegetables, whole grains, fruits, nuts, beans, and seeds. This will help reduce overweight and help them curb the obesity issue.

Teenage Pregnancy

Teenage pregnancy is a significant concern affecting adolescent girls in the local community. The issues are caused by various factors including poverty, premature sex, rape, sexual assault by older adults, lust, peer pressure among teenagers, pornography, among many others. Teenage pregnancy has been a great concern not only to the local community but also to the whole country at large. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2017) notes that more than 194,300 babies were born in 2017 by young mothers aged between 15-19 years giving a resultant birth rate of 18.8%. As these teenage girls get pregnant and give birth to children, life becomes tough for them to cope up with forcing some of them to drop out of school to take care of their young ones. Teenage pregnancies are unplanned; therefore, some adolescent girls opt to abort their pregnancies to give them relief from the supposed responsibilities as young mothers (CDC, 2017). Suitable measures should be considered to alleviate this issue by encouraging birth control mechanisms such as abstinence, use of condoms, as well as Long-Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC).

Drug and Substance Abuse among the Youths

Many persons especially the youths have developed the habit of abusing the illicit drugs and substances within the local community. Drug abuse is a community health issue since it contributes to the deterioration of health among the addicts leading to the general community health concern. According to the National Institute of Health (2018), the most commonly abused drugs include cocaine, marijuana, hallucinogens, and heroin. Some people also frequently use prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes. The NIH (2018) presents an urgent need to strengthen communication between the community health professionals, parents, and other anti-drug and substance abuse advocates and the persons addicted to drugs. The communication is to create awareness on the disadvantages of drug and substance abuse, listen and support drug abusers to come out of drug abuse, as well as setting a good example to the young ones by parents through avoiding drug abuse to help kick out the habit of drug and substance abuse in the society.

Ethical Healthcare Advocacy Plan to Address Obesity, Teenage Pregnancy, and Drug Abuse in the Local Community

Obesity, teenage pregnancy, and drug and substance abuse are critical community problems that require a firm advocacy plan that would spur multiple responses from other organizations, agencies, as well as individual precautions. This is called an integrated approach, which Dorfman and Krasnow (2014)) cite as the best way of addressing problems affecting our communities.

Healthcare Media advocacy is the most effective means of sensitizing the government, community, and individuals on the seriousness that obesity, teenage pregnancy, and drug abuse pose to the health of individual residents of the local community. Dorfman and Krasnow (2014) argue that healthcare media advocacy plan is a viable initiative that helps in increasing the public awareness of the potential problems, both short term or long term effects of such community healthcare issues. According to Dorfman and Krasnow (2014), healthcare media advocacy should be done with the aim of promoting discussions concerning the issues by the legislators so that they may come up with suitable policies to control the gravity of the community health issues. The plan involves making use of both mainstream media services such as televisions and radios as well as social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, among others to sensitize the gravity of obesity, teenage pregnancy, and drug abuse in the local community. When the news coverage is highly increased, many people will be more sensitized so that they become very eager to discuss, analyze, and find suitable ways to solve the problems (Dorfman and Krasnow, 2014). The target groups of the media advocacy plan include the general public, legislators, governmental and non-governmental agencies, health practitioners and advocates, among other interested parties. These issues will become a national concern and will most likely draw a lot of public attention needed to culminate the problem. The strength of media advocacy will determine the vigor at which the public will discuss the above community healthcare issues and consequently spur the likelihood of policymakers to debate and pass appropriate policy bills to culminate obesity, teenage pregnancy, and drug abuse.

According to Dorfman and Krasnow (2014), healthcare media advocacy plan is significant because it creates awareness across all age groups, social classes, as well as the general community. When the news coverage is highly increased about the community healthcare issues, there is a high likelihood that the problems will become a more top priority for both the public and the legislators. In other words, it set the agenda for both people and the policymakers. This will spur urgent interventions from multiple interest groups to enhance the amelioration of community healthcare.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). Reproductive Health: Teen Pregnancy. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/index.htm

Dorfman, L., & Krasnow, I. D. (2014). Public health and media advocacy. Annual Review of Public Health, 35.

Hales, C. M., Carroll, M. D., Fryar, C. D., & Ogden, C. L. (2017). Prevalence of obesity in adults and youth: United States, 2015-2016. US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics.

National Institute of Health. (2018). Drugs of Abuse. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse