Research Paper on Family Health: Analyzing Social Determinants for Optimal Outcomes

Introduction

It is the goal of every family to achieve optimal health standards. For every family, social determinants and other health factors play a major impact on their health outcomes. For vulnerable populations, it is even more important that families are analyzed for income and environment both which are important for preventing exposure to particular lifestyle conditions and importantly serve when providing treatment and care for the same health conditions. Factors such as patient education, income level, environment, and many other factors have been analyzed to affect both individual and family health conditions. In this paper, the main focus is to analyze the social determinant of the health of Mr. Ali's family and provide a complete plan of action on how the family can deal with different lifestyle conditions by incorporating a well-scrutinized health promotion strategy.

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The paper contains four important parts. Firstly, it contains an analysis of the social determinants health that contribute to the family health status, secondly, a screening test is proposed for the family in relations to the age of each member of the family, the paper then provides a complete assessment of health models before finally proposing one health model that should be used by the family. The entire health action plan proposal is based on sufficient rationale depending on the family case study that is under analysis.

Description of the SDOH

Social determinants of health are conditions in the environment in which people exist that affect their wide range of health. Some of these determinants affect the quality of life through functioning, outcome and putting people at the risk of acquiring infections. The main social health determinants affecting Mr. Ali's family is a lifestyle, vulnerability as Muslim American with African roots and education.

As a unit, the family has adopted a luxurious lifestyle which is exposure to lifestyle conditions like hypertension and obesity. Exposure to less or almost none physical activity adopted by the family places the family at potential risk of acquiring lifestyle conditions. Both parents and children should always think about adopting physical activities like morning walks or morning run to help avoid lifestyle conditions. Physical activity is important in maintaining body weight, burning calories and improving particular organ functioning. The family by having African roots through (the mother is Ghanaian) is vulnerable to lifestyle conditions like obesity and hypertension. According to the CDC, African Americans are likely to have hypertension due to exposure to different types of stress (Carnethon et al., 2017) Heart disease; diabetes, obesity, and hypertension are more prevalent among African Americans. Finally, the last social determinant factor is the lack of health education. Mr. Ali's family is not exposed to any education on matters of public health. Lack of knowledge on issues health makes the family vulnerable to most health conditions. For example; if the family is aware of the importance of physical activity, they are less likely to be exposed to conditions like obesity and hypertension.

The above mentioned three factors (education, poor lifestyle, and race) are the major social determinants of health that affect the family. Below is an action plan of how the family can deal with hypertension and obesity as the major lifestyle conditions affecting the family.

Screening Recommendation

The family has two adults who should be screened for hypertension. Adults above the age of 18 having no history of hypertension should be screened. Mr. Ali and the spouse should be screened for high blood pressure. Measurements outside the clinical setting will be very significant in determining the diagnostic confirmation. The screening measurement should focus on blood pressure above the normal 85-89 mmHg. Focus on Mr. Ali is mostly because of his luxurious lifestyle. His luxurious lifestyle is inclusive of the kind of diet that he engages in which exposes him to hypertension possibilities. Mr. Ali should be exposed to office measurements with an automated sphygmomanometer. The wife, Mrs. Okafour should be exposed to the ambulatory screening which is normally done after initial screening. Exposure to multiple measurements over time makes the process easy to predict, as compared to single measurements.

The Rationale for Screening for Hypertension

Hypertension is a prevalent condition for 30% of the adult population (Whelton et al., 2016). It is a condition that contributes to heart failure, heart attack, kidney disease, and stroke. In America, the condition contributed to 362000 deaths in the year 2017 which makes it necessary to screen for the condition (Whelton et al., 2016). Early detection of blood pressure in adults reduces incidences of cardiovascular-related disease making the screening very important. Another rationale is that early detection of hypertension leads to early treatment which has very little major harm.

Screening for Obesity

Screening for obesity for the children in the family is very important. The three children in the family are above the age of six which makes each of them vulnerable to obesity. Screening for obesity in children is done by taking BMI measurements using weight and height. Based on sex, female and male children should be screened separately. Any BMI above the 95th percentile or greater should be put to intervention measures.

The Rationale for Screening for Obesity

It is important to screen for obesity considering the numbers produced by the CDC. According to the CDC, 17% of children in America are obese (Lester, 2017). Most of them are aged between three years to nineteen. 32% of the entire population of children in America is obese, making it very necessary to screen for obesity (Lester, 2017). Another rationale for screening is that the condition is associated with other morbidities such as mental health, asthma, apnea, and metabolic other conditions.

Assessment of Health Model

The best method to use in solving family health assessment is a behavior model. The behavior model will ensure that each changes their lifestyle behavior effectively thereby preventing different health conditions. Human behavior is very important in adapting the central role in the maintenance of health in a family set up. Changing maladaptive behaviors overnight makes it very difficult for a family to adapt to certain systems (Leung et al., 2017). Maintaining a healthy behavior over time requires a lot of patience which can only be converted through strategies that aim at behavior. In specific terms, the best health behavior model to be used in achieving physical activity for Mr. Ali's family is learning and conditioning. Learning and conditioning are based on the desire to achieve the best condition for our health. The family should condition themselves to achieve desired results which include adopting a lifestyle that is free from the risk of both hypertension and obesity.

Application of Health Model

The first step of applying the model in terms of achieving an action plan is through setting goals. The family should create a goal-setting tool. The goal-setting tool links each member of the family to an expert. The link can be done physically or through a website. The website enables the two factions two share health information regarding the family. The goals of the family should include adapting physical activity within a specified time. For example; adapting two weeks' exercise is important in ensuring that the preliminary stages of the action plan are adapted.

The second part of the conditioning model involves the reinforcement of the physical activity mentally. The reinforcement of positive health behavior is an important part of the learning conditioning model. In the model, significant behaviors are awarded while non-significant ones are discouraged. In the family rewards for physical activities can be adopted. Some of these rewards for the family include; reward charts, physical activity role modeling by both the parents and the instructors.

The last action plan within the method is organized physical activity or session. In this session, the instructor is allowed to interact with each family member for active participation while monitoring the expected set of health issues. The inspected issues include; BMI, weight and other health-related issues. Such interventions also provide for lifestyle behaviors which include avoiding junk food and reducing screen time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the above action plan provides several conditions remedies of the family. The unit has shown ignorance on very important issues concerning health. The summary provides for the behavior health model which is one of the modern health interventions. It becomes easier to achieve family health intervention and assessment through simple health processes like learning and conditioning. Despite challenges like age gap conditions like obesity and hypertension can be managed, maintained and treated through the behavior model of health assessment. This paper provides a complete analysis of the same.

References

Carnethon, M. R., Pu, J., Howard, G., Albert, M. A., Anderson, C. A., Bertoni, A. G., ... & Yancy, C. W. (2017). Cardiovascular health in African Americans: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 136(21), e393-e423.

Lester, R. J. (2017). Selfgovernance, psychotherapy, and the subject of managed care: Internal Family Systems therapy and the multiple self in a US eatingdisorders treatment center. American Ethnologist, 44(1), 23-35.

Leung, A. A., Daskalopoulou, S. S., Dasgupta, K., McBrien, K., Butalia, S., Zarnke, K. B., ... & Gelfer, M. (2017). Hypertension Canada's 2017 guidelines for diagnosis, risk assessment, prevention, and treatment of hypertension in adults. Canadian Journal of Cardiology, 33(5), 557-576.

Whelton, P. K., Einhorn, P. T., Muntner, P., Appel, L. J., Cushman, W. C., Diez Roux, A. V., ... & Arnett, D. K. (2016). Research needs to improve hypertension treatment and control in African Americans. Hypertension, 68(5), 1066-1072.