Strategies for Working with Communities in Health Promotion

This document discusses strategies for working with communities in health promotion, focusing on type 2 diabetes. It covers key strategies for engaging with communities, core domains of capacity building, and models and approaches in health promotion. The aim is to increase community participation and awareness about type 2 diabetes.

ESSAY - WORKING WITH
COMMUNITIES

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
Key strategies for engaging with communities...........................................................................3
Part 2 ...............................................................................................................................................4
Core domains of capacity building.............................................................................................4
Part 3................................................................................................................................................6
Models and approaches in health promotion..............................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Type 2 diabetes is basically the disorder which keeps the body of the individual from
using insulin and thus is associated with the sugar level within their body. This disease is
predominately the chronic medical condition wherein sugar or the glucose level builds up within
cells of the blood streams. Insulin mainly helps in moving glucose from blood to the cells where
it is then utilized for the energy. In Type 2 diabetes, the body cells basically are not able to react
as well as respond to the insulin in way it should do. If uncontrolled, type 2 diabetes can
eventually lead to excess of high level of glucose thus causing various serious complications.
The major symptoms of this disorder is constant hunger, fatigue, excessive thirst, dry mouth,
itchy skin etc. It is highly essential aware the community about this disease as it has increasingly
become a great concern. Nowadays, every third person out of ten is diagnosed with type 2
diabetes. Thus, it has become crucial to devise various strategies for increasing the healthy
behaviour within people and implement a program for increasing their overall participation.
Main aim of choosing this topic is its increasing prevalence among community. It has been
reported that the prevalence of type 2 diabetes has increased to more than 69% across the whole
world and more than 1 million people are diagnosed with this disorder every day (Diabetes
Prevalence, 2019).
MAIN BODY
Part 1
Key strategies
Laveracks ladder of participation basically indicates the community based interaction
within health programs which indicates that participation and engagement of the community is
highly vital. It mainly based upon interpersonal basis and thus helps to develop the strategies for
increasing community participation.
Communication
This is one of the most effective which can be used for engaging the community and
making them aware about the harmful effects of type 2 diabetes. In this strategy, the various
healthcare organizations and healthcare professionals along with the nurses can communicate
and interact with the members of society to explain them about this disorder and how it can
impact their body badly. Through communication, the professionals and nurses can also look for
the patients of type 2 diabetes and provide them the effective treatment (Roura & et.al.,(2018).

Participation
This is the another most effective strategy which can be used within the program of
health awareness for making people aware about this disorder. The healthcare professionals can
encourage each and every member of the society to give their equal participation and come on
the common platform to discuss their health issues. The healthcare professionals and nurses can
increase the participation of the community members by providing the effective treatment and
strategies through which they can overcome the harmful effect of type 2 diabetes or can stop this
from being developing within them. Thus, participation is one of the key strategy which the
healthcare organizations can utilize for making the health awareness program successful and this
will help them to effectively implement the program (Cameron & Schneider, E. C. (2018).
Need assessment
This is the another strategy which can be used for increasing the engagement of
community members and for successfully implementing the program for addressing health
concerns. Need assessment is basically analyzing the healthcare needs as well as requirement of
the people who are suffering from type 2 diabetes and thus making improvement for fulfilling
these needs. This is one of the most effective strategy and approach which can be used for
successfully formulating the program. The healthcare professionals and nurses can assess the
healthcare needs of the members of community who are suffering from type 2 diabetes or who
have the symptoms to develop it in the future. By analyzing the healthcare needs of members of
community more and more people will show their interest and this will eventually increase their
overall engagement. Through this, a large number of people in community will come out and
interact with the healthcare professionals and this will help in effectively implementing the
program (Melchart & et.al.,(2016).
Part 2
Core domains of capacity building
Capacity building is basically the generic increase within abilities of the community
groups for defining, analyzing as well as acting on the health concerns which are of high
importance. The core domains of the capacity building which has been identified by Liberato et
al ca be utilized for increasing well as promoting the awareness about type 2 diabetes and can
also be used for increasing participation of the community members. There are various domains

with the capacity building which can be used for increasing the overall community engagement.
Theses domains are
Learning Opportunities Explain Core Domains
• Learning opportunities and skills
development
This is one of the most effective domain of
the capacity building. This mainly involves
the identification of the knowledge gaps and
provision of the opportunities for
development of skills. This can prove to be
the most effective domain of the capacity
building for preventing the harmful effects of
type 2 diabetes. The nurses as well as some
doctors lack the effective skills and thus have
a great knowledge gap like ineffective
communication, lack of knowledge about
medications etc. Thus, this domain is mainly
about build the conditions outside as well as
inside community which enables skills for
developing and finding the full expression.
The community should be provided with the
adequate knowledge about type 2 diabetes
which will eventually help in community
empowerment and prevention of this disease
(Peña & Sklar (2019)
• Resource mobilization This is the another domain of the capacity
building which will help in increasing the
capacity of overall community. Resource
mobilization is all about funding and the
availability of resources like building, time,
facilities etc. In order to for increasing the
ability of community to recognize as well as
access internal and external resources for
reducing the impact of type 2 diabetes, the
healthcare organizations should use the
various resources in a creative as well as in a
new way. For the successful implementation
of type 2 diabetes program, the healthcare
organizations and professionals should
encourage the community members to use
their resources effectively like proper food
and water facilities etc (Tanuseputro & et.al.,
(2019)
Partnership Partnership is the another domain of capacity
building which will help in increasing the
community empowerment. This is
predominately linkages with the others as

well as networking and inter-sectoral
participation (Ullah & et.al.,(2018). The
healthcare organization should partner with
the community members who are suffering
from type 2 diabetes and other people in
order to educate them and make them aware
about its harmful effect.
Leadership Leadership within the core domain of
capacity building is all about mobilizing the
community participation within the activities
of health promotion program. The healthcare
professionals should have the skills of
leadership in order to facilitate as well as
incorporate a sense of trust and openness
within the members of community regarding
type 2 diabetes. Not only does the healthcare
professionals but the nurses who have been
registered for promoting the type 2 diabetes
campaign should have the adequate leaders
attribute in order to foster and cultivate
creativity and responsibility among the
members of community towards harmful
effects of type 2 diabetes (Philip, Kannan &
Parambil (2018)
Participatory decision-making This is mainly the way for addressing the
root causes of issues which are mainly
identified by the community which is
involved within problem solving. In order to
reduce the impact of type 2 diabetes,
healthcare organizations should be able to
resolve the conflict for increasing
participation of community members.
Assets-based approach This is basically unique knowledge as well as
skills which are being possessed by the
community members. The healthcare
organizations should identify the skills as
well as strength which is present within
members for successful implementation of
type 2 diabetes health campaign.
Sense of community This is the another domain which mianly
identifies as well as solves the problems as
group and incorporating trust within the
community members. The healthcare
organizations should encourage community
member to have positive perception towards
each other and patients suffering from type 2

diabetes.
Communication This domain basically relates with sharing of
the thoughts as well as ideas between the
community members. This will help in
effective formulation of the type 2 diabetes
health promotion where nurses and
healthcare professionals can encourage
community members to take the
responsibility for seeking information related
to type 2 diabetes.
Part 3
Models and approaches in health promotion
The health belief model basically helps in designing the programs which are based upon
understanding of communities. The health belief model is basically the theoretical model which
can be utilized for building and promoting health promotion as well as disease prevention. In
short, this is predominately the social psychological health model which has been developed for
explaining and predicting health-related behaviour in relation to uptake of the health services.
This model will be used for motivating as well as educating the members of community about
type 2 diabetes. This model will help to predict the health behaviour of patients who are
suffering from type 2 diabetes and thus will be highly effective in gaining a deep insight of their
symptoms as well as their self-efficacy. The main of using this model for the prevention of type
2 diabetes campaign is that it will help to understand the social and emotional challenges of
people (Neema Sharda & White (2019).
Advantages
The major advantage of this model is that it helps to build the programs on the basis of
the existing understanding and knowledge of community members. This model basically allows
to analyze the knowledge base of communities and helps to design the health promotion program
by tailoring their understandings. The another advantage of this model is that it helps to
understand the health behaviour of people in community. This model act as guide and explain
healthcare professionals about the behaviour of people which contributes to various diseases.
Thus, this model will help nurses and doctors to understand the health behaviour of people
towards type 2 diabetes (Peiris, Wright, & Corcoran (2019).
Disadvantages

The major disadvantage of this model is that it generally does not consider the beliefs as
well as attitudes of the individual which dictates their acceptance. In shorty, it does not consider
behaviour which are habitual and thus leads to ineffective decision-making. For example- in
health promotion of type 2n diabetes, this mode will not provide habitual behaviour of people
like smoking. Another disadvantage is that it also does not consider the environmental and
economic factors which are contributing towards development of particular disease (Arnold
(2019).
Educational approach
There are generally various and wide number of approaches which are used in the health
promotion and educating community members like medical approach, behaviour change
approach, educational approach, empowerment approach, social change approach etc. Within the
health promotion campaign of type 2 diabetes, educational approach will be used. Education
approach is basically the approach whose main aim is to educate the people of community about
deadly diseases and the various treatment which can be taken to overcome it. The major purpose
of this approach is to help the community members to take informed decisions regarding the
health behaviour. This educational approach will provide to be highly effective for facilitating
the health promoting about the type 2 diabetes and thus will help the healthcare professionals to
provide information about the various aspects related to this disorder (Roura & et.al.,(2018).
Advantages
The main advantage of this approach is that it helps the community members to have
informed and well-through decision bout the health behaviour and thus provides the effective
knowledge and information about the disease. Another advantage is that it does not endeavor to
persuade and convince the community members within particular direction and thus provides
information from various sources. For example- this will help health promotion about type 2
diabetes to motivate the members in different direction instead of only focusing upon type 2
diabetes (Cameron & Schneider, E. C. (2018).
Disadvantages
The major disadvantage is that this approach mainly assumes that increasing knowledge
changes the attitude of community members which is not in every case. Sometimes knowledge is
not enough to change the attitude and beliefs of people. Another disadvantage is that it requires a

lot of research as well as money and time for collecting the information from various for
providing education (Melchart & et.al.,(2016).
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized that type 2 diabetes has become one of the major concern across
the entire world and thus have affected large number of people. Thus, it is highly essential to
develop a health promotion program for educating the community members about this, there are
various strategies which are being used in implementing program like communication,
participation etc. Besides this, there are various core domains of the capacity building which
helps in increasing participation of the community members like resource mobilization,
partnership, skills development etc. At then end, numerous models and approaches basically
helps in facilitating the health promotion campaign and assists in educating the community.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
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prevention programs for older adults and community agencies. Innovation in
Aging.2(Suppl 1). 846.
Melchart, D & et.al.,(2016). Individual health management-a comprehensive lifestyle
counselling programme for health promotion, disease prevention and patient education.
Complementary Medicine Research.23(1). 30-35.
Neema Sharda, K. D., & White, H. (2019). The Principles of Disease and Disability Prevention
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Peiris, D., Wright, L., & Corcoran, K. (2019). Community-Based Chronic Disease Prevention
and Management for Aboriginal People in New South Wales, Australia: Mixed Methods
Evaluation of the 1 Deadly Step Program. JMIR mHealth and uHealth.7(10).e14259.
Peña, A., & Sklar, D. P. (2019). Moving our education priorities from sickness to health: The
opportunity for health promotion, disease prevention, and population health to transform
health professions education. Academic Medicine.94(6). 741-743.
Philip, P. M., Kannan, S., & Parambil, N. A. (2018). Community-based interventions for health
promotion and disease prevention in noncommunicable diseases: A narrative review.
Journal of education and health promotion.7.
Roura, S. C. R & et.al.,(2018). Social communication in health for disease prevention in the
community.
Tanuseputro, P & et.al., (2019). Simulation modeling to enhance population health intervention
research for chronic disease prevention. Canadian Journal of Public Health.110(1). 52-
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Ullah, S & et.al.,(2018). Journal of Family Medicine and Disease Prevention.
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Diabetes Prevalence. 2019. [Online] Available through: <https://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes-
prevalence.html>