Health Program Planning and Implementation

This article discusses the determinants of health, barriers in health promotion programs, planning and implementation of health plans, and assessment of needs. It also provides examples of health issues like obesity and strategies to address them.

Running head: Health program planning and implementation 0
Health program planning and implementation
7/19/2018

Health program planning and implementation 1
Question 1
Health is all about free from diseases; it includes healthy body as well as healthy
mind, healthy body and healthy mind depicts the well-functioning of both. Health promotion
plays a very crucial role in making population aware about various health problems. There
are various determinants of health across the world these are, policies of the particular
country, social factors, and health services provided, behaviour of individual, biological
factors and genetics, all these determinants have impact on public health. Health programs
across the world ameliorate the public health through recognizing and addressing the issues.
Various strategies are there to ensure the effectiveness of health promotion
Corroborate the community action
An effective health promotion program can be achieved through the better planning,
decision making, and implementation of strategies (Northern Healthy community partnership,
2013).
Through creation of supportive environment
Creation of healthy, safe and nurturing environment plays vital role in generating the
positive desire in public towards health promotion programs. Dynamic pattern of life has
significant effect on the heath of people. So, amicable environment should be there, to
achieve the success in health promotion programs (NCBI, 2011).
Healthy public policy
Effective and healthy policies require the identification of hurdles in the acceptance of
policies in health and non-health sectors. The objective of making healthy policy is to make
the adoption of policies the easier choice.
Developing personal skills
Health promotion programs support the development and enhance the various skills in
public like, education, life skills and many more.
There are different barriers in health promotion programs; in rural communities of the
world and these barriers have impact on health promotion programs. Some of the barriers are
given below.
Huge poverty rate, cultural and social beliefs, lower literacy rates, language barriers,
unemployment, barrier of conveyance , lack of resources and many more, all these factors
are the biggest hindrance in the public health promotion programs (Department of health and
human services, 2018).

Health program planning and implementation 2
Health promotion programs are the tools, which make the public aware about various
health issues, on the other hand various hindrances are also there to become the obstacle in
success of these health programs. So proper policy formulation and their implementation
break out all the hurdles and led to the success of the program (Centre for disease control and
prevention, 2014).
Question 2
Planning and implementation of health plans in an effective manner is a very tough
task, naturally organizations have to encounter with the numerous issues of public, population
and the settings (Healthy people. Gov., 2010). All of these are the foundation of an effective
plan, explained below:
Issues
Issues are the health problems some of the examples are, tobacco consumption,
obesity, disability and many more. Recognition of health issues plays a very important role in
setting the objectives for health promotion program. Health promotion programs are
depending on the health issues. Prior knowledge of issues is required for formulating the
strategies for better implementation of health promotion program, and issues are the foremost
cornerstone of promotional program; on which whole of the program is depend.
Population
People can be explained as the target group for the promotion of health programs.
People comprise of children, women, men, adults, adolescent and many more. The choice of
particular type of group attracts strategies accordingly (Canada.in, 2013). Along with the
choice of target group, determinants of health problems are very crucial to be find out in
particular area. So the choice of target group is very important to plan a promotional
activity.e.g. If health department wants to aware the public about tobacco consumption, so
choice of people or target group is very important here, male segment of the society will be
the target group for this health promotion program (Astho, 2018).
Settings
There are various settings where people conduct their activities; these are home,
locality, state, region, schools, offices any more places. Settings play very crucial role in
influencing the population of particular target group, e.g. Spreading of awareness among
children can be better achieved through the promotion of health programs in schools,
developing good eating habits among children can be promoted through the collective setting
in schools, day nurseries.
Population, their issues, and the locality where they live are needed to be properly
identified before going for health promotion program.

Health program planning and implementation 3
Question 3
Assessment of needs is the process of identifying the health problems prevalent in the
community, and also finds out the causes behind these problems. Assessment of needs ensure
the successful implementation of health programs and ultimately results in improving the
community health (NHS Health Scotland, 2018). Identifying the needs and problems
provides the direction to the health promoters, also gives opportunity to the health systems
and health departments. Health need assessment includes various health problems these are,
TB, HIV, disability, malaria and many more diseases. Identification of these problems is very
crucial in planning and implementation of health promotion programs. These can be collected
through various methods given below:
Using available data
Under this one can use existing data, depending on the information gathered by others
(National academic press, 2018).
Through conducting interviews
Face to face interview with the each person is the better way of getting knowledge
about various issues or health problems prevalent in the area.
Through direct observation
By spending some days at the place can gives you real view of the situation prevailing
in that area. E.g. if the health department wants to know about the TB patients in the
particular area, so they have to thoroughly explore the area and collect information as much
as possible within prescribed time limit.
Surveys
There are various kinds of surveys used to assess the community, written surveys, oral
surveys and many more.
All these methods give reliable information about the health problems, and help the
promoters of the health promotional programs. Examples of health problems are obesity,
HIV, TB, cancer, teen pregnancy, disability, mental problems, physical problems and many
more. Importance of need assessment in proper planning and implementation of health
promotion programs, are given below:
 It contributes to the program planning through proper collection of data on various
health issues.
 It improves decision making, decision making is very crucial aspect, so its need
authentic information before taking any decision.

Health program planning and implementation 4
 Ensure the implementation of plan appropriately.
 Need assessment is the base of promotion activity, if the health department is not
aware about the health needs of the population, then this may results in failure of the
programs, so proper need assessment should be there while planning for any
promotion of health issue among public.
Question 4
Obesity is rapidly increasing across the world, and rising towards an epidemic with
harmful health effects. There are many determinants of obesity like, genetic factors, food
consumption habits, physical activities, depression, anxiety and many more. Obesity is a
problem that is arising from a complex life style of an individual. There are various countries
where obesity becomes the serious problem like, Qatar, Kuwait, United States and many
more (The telegraph, 2017). Taking United States in consideration following health
promotion planning is done:
Process of health promotion program
Management of planning process
This includes participation of public, timeliness, resources available, gathering of
data, decision making. Decision making is all about to make the data available at time, and its
interpretation also on time, that exhibits efficiency of the program. Planning also includes
staff and clients proper way of activities to be conducted, budget (Public health Ontario,
2011).
Assessment of situation
This includes identification of situation, what makes situation better, what makes
situation worse. Assessment of situation can be done through the use of various types of data,
various sources of data, and then proper analysis should be done for decision making.
Identification of public interested, goals, outcomes
Goals provide overall direction for the program, public requires attention to achieve
our goal, and objectives are the statements.
Identification of strategies and process
Strategies are formulated to achieve the objectives of the plan. Identification of
various health issues helps in formulating strategies accordingly. It includes policies for
development, education of health, communication. It includes identification of activities
which include how to start, continue and stop.
Development of indicators

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Indicators determine the extent to which process and outcomes will be met.
Reviewing program plan
This is the last step; it includes reviewing of the contribution of the plan to meet its
objective, evaluation of gaps, also check out whether strategies effectively contributed or not,
what changes to be needed.
Planning of health promotion program includes the framework, through which
promotion is done; it starts with “who” that is target groups (e.g. adolescents, women, and
children), “where” that means target group, settings or area (e.g. schools, hospitals, offices),
“how” that means strategies (e.g. mass media, personal education, school education). After
analysing these cornerstones of health promotion programs, strategies are formulated to bring
the proper implementation of the program, and bring the changes in the population towards
addressed health issue of obesity in the United States. Strategies includes, making people of
US aware through social media, newspaper, education, conducting programs at various
places. Children are more prone to obesity, childhood age is most influential age, and so
conducting promotion programs at schools, colleges will be better option to make children
aware about the obesity. Doctors can proscribe children about bad eating habits, and
prescribe them nutritious eating habits. But there are gaps also that hindered the way of
promotion these are, budget available, social factors, training and education of the promotion
staff and many more. So to achieve the success in health promotion program proper
implementation should be there.

Health program planning and implementation 6
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assessment
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