Preventing Hypertension through Community-Based Interaction

Running head: HYPERTENSION
Hypertension
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1HYPERTENSION
Introduction- High blood pressure is also known as hypertension and it is a major risk
factors for the chronic diseases like the chronic kidney disease, heart failure, coronary heart
disease and stroke. The risks associated with the high blood pressure include the poor diet,
insufficient physical exercise, excessive amount of alcohol consumption and obesity. The world
health organization have reported that the 17 percent of the women and 21 percent of men that
are aged over 18 years are suffering from high blood pressure. Australian Institute of Health and
Welfare have reported that the over 1 in 3 adults in Australia have high blood pressure (34
percent) for the year 2014 to 2015 and it is high in comparison to the 32 percent for the year
2011 to 2012. Furthermore, 3.1 percent of the Australian adults have an impaired fasting glucose
for the year 2011 to 2012 (aihw.gov.au, 2019). This study will be based on the preventing
hypertension through the Laverack’s ladder of community based interaction, discussion on the
usage of the core domains and the description of the approaches and the models on health
promotion.
Part 1: According to the data of the Australian Health Survey for the year 2014 to 2015,
it has been found that 1 in 3 people that are aged 18 and over have high blood pressure which
accounts to 34 percent. This report also presents that the about 13 percent of the Australian
population have uncontrolled blood pressure. While 11 percent of the Australian were having
blood pressure that were taking medications for controlling same. For the men, the average
systolic blood pressure is higher (126 mmHg) in comparison to the females (120 mmHg).
Whereas, for both the men and women the average diastolic blood pressure is 77 and 76 mmHg
respectively. 79 percent and above showed high blood pressure and were obese or overweight.
Furthermore, 42 percent also reported that they had no or very little exercise in the past week. To
address hypertension, Laverack’s ladder of community-based interaction is used as a guide. The

2HYPERTENSION
three key strategies are: medical strategy, behavioural strategy and socio-ecological strategy
(Swannell, 2018).
Medical strategy provides the appropriate counselling, diagnostic facility, and
appropriate treatment. Behavioural strategy includes the better health choices and behaviour, life
style, better choices of diet. Socio-ecological strategy emphasises on the generation of the
awareness development, community organization, communication and education, spread of
information so that the issue can be addressed in a broader sense for a small group. Socio-
ecological strategy- this will aim towards the preliminary steps of the ladder in the community
based interaction. The main target will be to spread awareness among the members of the
community about hypertension, the health outcomes, complications and the disease process. A
general survey will be carried out to get an overview of the behavioural attitudes, complications
due to burden of disease, prevalence of the risk factors. It is important to mention that a well-
informed community will be more receptive in comparison to the activities of health promotion.
Mass media approach will be utilized to educate the people and the leaders of the community
will also participate in the activity (Hall, et al., 2016). Behavioural strategy- change in
behaviour has two major components like the health seek behaviour and life style change. The
three different types of the people are the people that are not having the risk factor or risks, high
risk of getting the disease and people that have the disease. The change in behaviour
communication will be done within the three groups and it will also have some overlaps
(Bahraminejad et al., 2014). Therefore, the people that have the disease will be in consultation
with the doctor and the will also undergo change in behaviour like the lowering the salt intake,
high physical activity and obesity reduction. Providing information will provide the community
with the information regarding the symptoms of whom to consult with such symptoms and how