Community Health and Disease Prevention : Diabetes mellitus

Running Head: COMMUNITY HEALTH 1
Community Health and Disease Prevention
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COMMUNITY HEALTH 2
Date
Introduction
Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common chronic disease globally. The
disease affects a considerable proportion of people in Australia, with approximately
1.7 million people having the disease. This represents 6% of the Australian
population, and it means that 280 Australians are diagnosed with diabetes each day.
Diabetes therefore, has the most significant burden of disease in Australian. The total
economic impact of the disease is approximately $14.6 billion per year (Park et al..,
2018). Diabetes type two also affects the quality of a life of an individual massively
and hence making patient education very critical to help people prevent and manage
the disease. This document, therefore, uses the Laverick ladder of community-based
interactions to identify strategies that can be used to engage the community to tackle
this disease. The paper also discusses how community members can be supported and
empowered to own the prevention programs aimed at tackling the diabetes menace in

COMMUNITY HEALTH 3
the country. The last section of the paper uses the educational approach to motivate
and educate the community about diabetes type two. The article also discusses the
advantages and disadvantages of the models used in educating the community.
Part 1
Health promotion activities have increasingly involved the community through
empowerment to enable them to have a greater influence over the factors that
determine their health. According to WHO, engagement is defined as the process of
building relationships that allow all stakeholders to work together to promote health
and address issues affecting health to achieve positive health impact and outcomes
(Hills et al., 2018). To empower individuals and communities in health promotions, it
is critical to have a mutual collaboration of professional stakeholders in charge of the
program with the community targeted by the program. According to Laverick (2007),
the ladder of community-based interaction framework, the level of interaction,
includes; community readiness, participation, engagement, organization,
development, capacity-building, collective action, and community empowerment. The
levels follow one another systematically and hence the name community interaction
ladder.
One of the strategy that should be used to engage the community in addressing
the health priority issue of diabetes is community participation. Community
participation is defined as active participation by a person or a group in activities
targeted at promoting health, and they not only contribute ideas but are also involved
in the interventions (Bradley & Hsueh,2016). This strategy is beneficial in tackling
diabetes because it is very critical for the people who are suffering or who at risk of
getting diabetes to be fully involved in their care. This strategy focuses on shifting the

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control on decision making from the professionals in the healthcare sector to a more
shared relationship where the role of health workers is assisting the community
members in making informed decisions regarding their health (Nickel Süß, Lorentz &
Trojan, 2018). In encouraging the community to engage in the program of educating
people about diabetes, participation is initiated by the need to improve care within a
particular community. The healthcare organization then begins the initiative and
identifies units within the community that are contacted to sensitize the community on
the existence of such a program. The sensitization should happen through social units
such as churches, women groups, as well as community leaders. The main objective
of this strategy is to ensure that the maximum number of people from the targeted
community participates in the program of educating people about diabetes type two
(Rice et al., 2016). The program will also cooperate with different partners within the
community to improve understanding of health, culture and the social aspects of the
community which could play an important role informing the things that should be
given more priority and which the community feels are contributing more to a high
prevalence of diabetes type two.
The other strategy is the empowerment of the community. Community
empowerment involves improving the ability of individuals, communities, and
organizations to achieve greater control of their lives and environment and their future
to improve their health outcomes and well-being (Baptista et al., 2016). The main
objective of this strategy is to ensure that people understand entirely ways in which
they can prevent and manage diabetes type two. Community members either through
groups or individuals are motivated and equipped with the necessary knowledge,
skills, and resources that they need to have control over diabetes type one and their
health in general (Sauter et al., 2020). Once the community members are empowered,