Community Health and Disease Prevention

This article discusses the field of community health and disease prevention, focusing on strategies for health promotion and disease control. It also examines the issue of malnutrition in Somalia and the efforts being made to address it.

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Community health and disease prevention
Name
Institutional Affiliation

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PART A
Section 1
Community health is a field of study which majorly focuses on protection, maintenance,
and healthcare impartments among population groups and communities by examining the health
characteristics over time ( Reisner et al.2015). It can be majorly achieved by health promotion
which involves the empowering the community in order to give them control over their health.
This can be achieved through various ways including health literacy efforts and multi-sectional
actions which improves healthy behavior, this considers the activities in people's lives with are
believed to be contributing to the causes and spread of the diseases. It involves the population
dietary behaviors, sociocultural, environmental conditions, demographic factors and economic
factors that are considered key to influencing the populations' healthcare ( Murdaugh, Parsons
and Pender 2018). However, disease prevention is different from health promotion as its focus
aims at suppressing the development and the seriousness of the chronic diseases and other forms
of illness (Piepoli et al., 2016). Health promotion and disease control are the crucial determinants
of health standards, as they influence decisions made by individuals towards positive health
behavior. Like decisions concerning poor eating habits, lack physical exercise and tobacco use
and other eating behaviors which would otherwise contribute to chronic diseases if not controlled
positively.
Malnutrition best described as a condition arising from eating food which is in a deficit of
the essential nutrients or is in excess of more than the nutrients required by the body and hence

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leading to health problems (Cederholm et al. 2015). Extreme undernutrition may cause
starvation which may lead to death if not taken care of in due time. By the year 2014, almost 462
million adults were overweight worldwide with nearly 1.9 billion people who were underweight
due to cases attributed to nutrition deficiencies ( Cederholm et al. 2016). The problem related to
malnutrition is pervasive in underdeveloped countries and developing countries whereby the
people cannot afford to produce enough foodstuff for themselves, in this case, the paper focuses
on malnutrition among adults of the country Somalia. Somalia is a country with a very low GDP
of about $7.369 million with the agricultural sector contributing up to about 60% of the GDP
(Avakov, 2015). The country’s agricultural industry is majorly in household firms. The
agriculture is highly dependent on unreliable rainfall which has in turn made crop cultivation
impossible and hence the people rely heavily on animal products.as per the year 2017, almost 6
million people which represents almost half of the population of the country were facing severe
food shortages with 2.9 million people facing acute food shortages. By March 2017, 1.75million
people depended solely on relief donner food for survival while more than 100 people were
announced dead due starvation. The whole country is affected by the problem of drought
occasionally since the entire country’s landmass is arid and semi-arid. The country is also marred
with constant political conflict with hinders any successful largescale agricultural enterprises
(Mpelasoka, Awange and Zeruhun 2018). Malnutrition is very critical here as it impacts the
people’s lives negatively by lowering the body functionality, causes illness and even death in
eventuality. Besides, the country’s workforce is significantly reducing as people suffering from
malnourishment are unable to participate in production activities resulting to slow economic
growth actively.

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The government of Somalia together with its international partners has put in place
several remedies to ensure the effects of malnutrition is effectively mitigated. With the help of
the World Bank and FAO,$115 million was set aside to help in implementation of drought
curbing strategies, through this, the government has supported specialized agriculture like
greenhouse farming, and land reclamation through irrigation which has, in turn, improved the
food security of the region reducing deaths attributed to feminine and effects of drought
( Wachira, 2015). However, a lot is needed to be done to save the situation in Somalia and
developing countries as a whole to completely eradicated the health effects of malnutrition. The
government, the international community, and the non-governmental organizations should
undertake many efforts in conjunction with the local community in coming up with much better
and efficient ways of ensuring sustainability of food production across the whole country which
faces harsh climatic conditions and political challenges.
Section 2
Community based interactions can be whereby the several concepts which are communal
based are put in place of interaction with each other with an aim of coming up with the solution
to various issues prevailing in the community. The concepts such as empowerment of the
population, capacity development, peoples engagement, and the community’s organization are
used as the basis of interaction for the visualization of presentations in different concepts to
enable improve the participation of the community members in various ways which can
guarantee their action n towards the general problem. The communal ideas do not have to follow
a particular design of fashion as Lavarack says it. (Bailey and Pill 2015) Model in public based

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engagements which give a provision of a clear cut among the communally based concepts which
are aimed at the promotion of action and those that agitate for people’s participation. The two
occurs differently when the community members are actively participating instead of being
considered passives in the participation of problem-solving strategy.
For the recommendations and strategies of curbing the effects and causes of malnutrition
to occur, there would be the need for to recognize the common beneath issues which affect the
respective communities before bringing the members on board for solution seeking chat (Perez et
al. 2018). With the members being involved actively in participation, they will be in a position of
understanding the risk they are likely to face and the rewards of changing the system in case they
accept to adopt the new policies which include the newly formulated strategies which can be
used effectively in changing their common system.
The central core ways through which the Somalian government and the international
community has adopted in dealing with the malnutrition problem are in the country whose
citizens faces imminent starvation are categorized in three forms (Stamoulis and Hemrich 2016).
All of the categories aim at showing the change from submissive involvement of the people to
active one whereby everyone’s is included in decision making
Engagement
According to Lavarack (2007) engagement is the process by which members in the
community are unified in order to come up with resolutions which can be used as a remedy to
their problem. Through the process, the affected individuals are to be listened to to have a clear

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understanding of the situations they face and as well give them the information concerning the
prevalence, causes and the known risks attributed to malnutrition. The process is aimed at
informing the participants of their condition and also getting the knowledge about their
experience. The engagement process would have needs of assessment; this is carried out through
identification of the shortfalls within the society. The data is collected via listening to the
community members coming up with any available information concerning the region.
Partner
To create a partnership with the community members, one has to develop the aspect of
trust with open-minded conversation, other entities in the Somali land will play the vital role in
ensuring there is mediation between the communities with the common problem. Through the
partnership, many groups are capable of coming together with joined resources and formulate a
body that is capable of catering for their welfare.
Empower
This is considered the last strategy by Lavarack (2007). Through this the community
members are accorded the control over resources and the decisions which have effects in their
lives. Members from the targeted communities get empowered to shift in their actions and social
welfare in such ways that enable them to achieve food security and ways of kicking out
malnutrition which is caused by famine as a result of drought. This is likely to revolutionize the
whole community in better ways through achievement of their nutritional goals.
Part B

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Improving the understanding of the community about issues of their own and others.It is
essential to understand the communal needs for the affected parties to understand the origin of
the malnutrition problem within the population.
The community has to coherently express their needs according to their initial
understanding of deficiency including necessary resources and the political factors which they
believe to be the course of the food nutritional problems.
Conflict resolution is vital as it encourages negotiations among individuals of a
community hence ease in challenge resolution efforts. (Wallensteen,2018). Furthermore, it gives
a room for a compromise within the opposing parties hence solution can be agreed upon.
Efficaciousness of communication of information is vital in reaching an agreement in a
community (Fusch and Fusch 2015). The information should give the citizens of Somalia a
comprehension of several factors which are likely to influence them to cause food malnutrition.
Through this, stability can be forged among the community members with a clear understanding
of each other.
Control of relations inside the community with regard to outside resources. Members of
the community should be able to have friendly relations with each other for them to move
together (Muller, 2018). With the scarce external resources, it should be ensured that the funds
are allocated to the people equitably since it is necessary for proper understanding and hence
promotes better results in the process.

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Dedication. This will enhance responsibility in the community; hence they will do things
which are beneficial to them, with a common goal in place, they will get devoted in order to
achieve the set goals.
Agent decision making. With this in place, all members are to contribute to changing the
management with the understanding of the implications of managerial change. ( Kochenderfer,
2015).With jointed in goal determination, members can vividly comprehend the purposes and the
consequences hence that would boost the goals acceptability.
Part C
Models and Approaches to Health Promotion
Health promotion involves the activities of the provision of health information, health
education among the people, policies, organizational and environmental factors that affects the
healthcare provision (Gielen and Green 2015). It considers the behavioral change approach,
medical, educational, social change and empowerment approach.
Approach on educational front in promoting health is best suited in informing the citizens
of Somalia about malnutrition including the effects of starvation and ways through which the
situation can be handled. This approach is based on the educational role in imparting knowledge
with high hopes of changing the people’s perceptions of health (Nahum, Hekler and Spuruijt
2015). For the case, the people suffering in Somalia will get proper knowledge about having
proper and quality foodstudff.in the community where only animal products are available in
limitations.

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Advantages of educational approach are:
The information provided to the people is appropriate and life changing.
People are able to interpret the information given to them and use it in decision making.
It gives the recipients the knowledge and room to make independent decisions without
being pushed.
Disadvantages of educational approach are:
It does not compel people to produce the desired decisions
It is time-consuming, in provision of education to large communities.
The health behavior model supports educational approach. The technique motivates the
people to change behaviors in a way which leads to their wellbeing, this technique has two
variables, the health goals and the chances that the acts will be put in action to accomplish like
demography and social variables, individual conception and the possibilities of action based on
return in comparison to the cost ( Jonhson and May 2015). If the returns are more significant
than the cost, then the move is likely to occur.
Summary

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This paper has talked about the malnutrition challenge in the developing countries with
the focus on Somalia as one of the undeveloped land which faces severe challenges in food
malnutrition among her citizens. It also incorporated the various communal based interactions in
coming up with strategies of improving community engagement. It further looked into the core
areas of capacity building within the specified community, and lastly, it has looked into the
models and approaches in health promotion and disease control within a specified population.

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