Research Paper on The Guide to Community Preventive Services

Introduction

The Guide to Community Preventive Services, also known as the Community Guide is a product of the work done by the Task Force on Community Preventive Services for eight years. During inception, this Task Force was tasked with creating recommendations for the interventions that are aimed at promoting health and preventing diseases in the healthcare systems and communities within the United States. The recommendations were targeted at being built on systematically derived scientific evidence of their efficiency. A majority of individuals did not agree that the Task Force would be successful in its efforts, many of them holding that community-based interventions did not have the capability of being systematically evaluated (Shults et al., 2001). As such, critics of the efforts by the Task Force built their arguments on the fact that the team could not benefit from the focusing on what is effective, and that the community-based interventions could not be resilient against scientific scrutiny.

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However, the Task Force was successful min developing the Guide to Community Preventive Services, which functions as a filter for scientific studies on particular health problems that are inaccessible, uneven in quality, inconsistent, and are large in size. This evidence-based approach provides with summaries regarding what is deemed economic efficient, feasible, and effective interventions aimed at promoting community health and preventing diseases. Results from the summaries by the Task Force are then published in peer-reviewed articles and journals and they are made accessible over the internet in their website.

Social workers are expected to comprehend the issues generally conveyed to the consideration of social offices and how human issues add up and overlap. In talking about the issues of juvenile crimes, school-age girls giving birth, increased school dropout, neediness, joblessness, alcoholism and drug misuse, domestic violence, among others, each can be contemplated independently, however in reality they collaborate, strengthen each other, and regularly group together in similar people (Hepworth et al., 2016). Progressively, the harm that starts in youth turns out to be so noticeable in immaturity. It echoes all through an area as a major aspect of an intergenerational cycle of social destruction. The interrelatedness of human issues is a certain reality.

As foundation for managing social issues, the social worker ought to be comfortable with elements that add to the general personal satisfaction on the earth. A portion of these are spotless air and water, a protected and adequate supply of sustenance and vitality, open doors for work, worldwide political and financial conditions that help individual flexibility and social equity, the insightful utilization of innovation to enhance human welfare, accomplishment in controlling transferable sicknesses and advancing health, and a world free of separation, racial disdain and war (Netting et al., 2016). To put it plainly, the keen social worker has an overall world view.

Social work practice and related social administrations and administrations are especially impacted by occasions and choices at the national dimension. For instance, in places such as Hong Kong, the social worker must comprehend the convictions, values, association of society and its administrative, political, and financial frameworks. And sooner rather than later, the social worker must comprehend the framework, convictions, values, as well as different aspects of China.

In the case of the Guide to Community Preventive Services, the practice has different conditions. However, similar to those included in social work, they aim at improving the health and quality of life of individuals. In the case of changing health risk behaviors, the practice conducts an in-depth analysis of interventions that have been developed in an effort to prevent the use of drugs such as tobacco. This is achieved through the use of mass media strategies, policies, as well as healthcare strategies providing effective therapies. On nutrition, the Guide to Community Preventive Services conducts reviews on the levels of effectiveness of various nutrition interventions with the aim of bolstering the attitudes and knowledge regarding the consumption patterns of individuals (Briss et al., 2001).

The Guide to Community Preventive Services also has various procedures for dealing with specific health conditions such as vaccine preventable diseases, mental health, cancer, diabetes, violence, oral health, vehicle occupant injuries, among others. Moreover, the Guide to Community Preventive Services has in place various procedures for dealing with the environment. In dealing with the social environment, the Guide to Community Preventive Services works under the impression that health is its product and a product of social institutions, and the interventions and processes should improve early childhood development programs, improve the access to quality health all, regardless of the age, and address the issue of residential mixed income housing.

There are various steps in which were considered in the implementation of the Guide to Community Preventive Services. The first step involved the asking of a clinical guiding question. This was achieved by the format of focusing on the people, the population, and the problem of interest while taking into consideration the prognostic and intervention factor. A comparison was then conduced, and the results were measured in a given period of time. The second step involved the search for the most relevant and appropriate evidence. This involved the selection of the most appropriate resources and information databases that can support the issue to be addressed. A critical appraisal of the evidence is the third step. Here, the reliability of the studies and resources were determined, and their validity and applicability was measured. This was achieved through an analysis of their strengths and weaknesses.

The next step involves integrating the evidence into a single practice. Before the integration, there were other factors beyond the validity and applicability of the evidence to be considered. Such factors included the epidemiological, socioeconomic, and biologic factors. An evaluation of the results of the evidence-based practice decision was done to determine whether it was effective or required to be changed. The final step involves disseminating the results of the evidence. This was done through journal clubs, conferences, manuscripts, among others. An evaluation of the overall results is another procedure that falls under this step.

Conclusion

Evidence-based practice has been defined as the process through which practitioners integrate well-developed and researched interventions into clinical and social practices, as well as in ethics. The culture and preferences of the individuals helps social workers in informing their delivery of interventions and services. In order to identify what is effective and what is not, all stakeholders in social work, ranging from institutions, practitioners, and clients should work in unison regardless of the conditions. This increases the effectiveness of interventions, and ensures that interventions having higher rates of success have been widely implemented. This paper has focused on the Guide to Community Preventive Services, an evidence-based practice by the Guide to Community Preventive Services Task Force, comparing its conditions wit that included in social work. While the conditions in the two might differ in the scope and in procedures, they both reconcile on the underlying aim of improving the quality of health and life of communities.

References

Briss, P. A., Zaza, S., Pappaioanou, M., Fielding, J., Wright-De Aguero, L., Truman, B. I., ... & Carande-Kulis, V. G. (2000). Developing an evidence-based guide to community preventive services-methods12. American journal of preventive medicine, 18(1), 35-43.

Hepworth, D. H., Rooney, R. H., Rooney, G. D., & Strom-Gottfried, K. (2016). Empowerment series: Direct social work practice: Theory and skills. Nelson Education.

Netting, F. E., Kettner, P. M., McMurtry, S. L., & Thomas, M. L. (2016). Social work macro practice. Pearson.

Shults, R. A., Elder, R. W., Sleet, D. A., Nichols, J. L., Alao, M. O., Carande-Kulis, V. G., ... & Thompson, R. S. (2001). Task Force Community Preventive Services. Reviews of evidence regarding interventions to reduce alcohol-impaired driving. Am J Prev Med, 21(Suppl 4), 66-88.