Community Health and Disease Prevention Assessment 1 Essay

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COMMUNITY HEALTH AND DISEASE PREVENTION
ASSESSMENT 1
ESSAY - WORKING WITH COMMUNITIES
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Part 1...........................................................................................................................................................4
Part 2...........................................................................................................................................................6
Part 3...........................................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................10
References.................................................................................................................................................11
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Introduction
The report aims to identify the impacts of different levels of community-based interaction in
health programs in the context of dengue prevention programs. It helps to identify the various
theories, models and approaches in the prevention program of dengue. The Laverack’s ladder of
community-based framework helps to understand the importance of three key strategies which
will be helpful to increase the engagement of communities, which will be useful to implement
the dengue prevention program successfully. The core domains of capacity building will be
discussed in this essay, which is helpful for prevention programs. Different models and
approaches and their advantages and disadvantages will be addressed in this essay.
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Part 1
Community is a self-organized group of people who have a common interest, agenda and causes
who collaborate by sharing some information and ideas as well. Community-based programs are
those programs which are specially designed to serve some specific reasons to the members of
communities in their own environment. It includes a wide range of activities to help others. More
often, the causes are social.
Dengue fever is a kind of tropical mosquito-borne diseases. The dengue virus is the responsible
virus for this fever. It is one of the most dangerous types of, which makes it really required that it
should be identified and cures on time. The symptoms will start to begin from 3 to 14 years after
the infection itself. The most common symptoms are high fever, muscle and joint pain, headache,
vomiting and some skin rashes also. It can cause death if it doesn’t treat it on time so then it
should be really required that the symptoms would be identified and it can only be done if the
people are aware of the signs. Awareness camps will be the right choice when it comes to
spreading awareness about the dengue fever but making the communities engage with the field
will be considered as a difficult task as well. When it comes to health practices, there will be no
space for making mistakes and without making the people of different communities ready for
active participation from their end.
The ladder of community-based interaction provides a framework which includes few steps
on each rung of the ladder, which are readiness, participation, engagement, listening and
Communication and assistance as well. This framework will be beneficial when it comes to run
successful community programs. Each rung of the ladder also includes different steps, but among
all of them, the most important one is engagement which will be the responsible factor for
making any community programs successful or ruined because it takes participation. When it
comes to organising a dengue awareness camp, thus, dengue is one of the most dangerous
diseases which spread by animals or insects as well (Laverack, 2014). With the help of the
framework of the ladder of community-based interaction, the following are the strategies for
engaging the more community members to the dengue awareness programs.
Effective promotion is the key to increase engagement. It is essential the members are fully
informed about the schedule of the dengue awareness programs because it is necessary the
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members have all the information which they need to be a part of the awareness programs. For
raising awareness, it is necessary the members significantly understand the causes and impacts of
the diseases in their lives, which can only happen only if the promotions are valid as well. Social
media could be better placed when it comes to promoting any event because of the vast use of
social media nowadays, it is effective, though (Laverack, 2014). Promotions will increase
curiosity and make it memorable for a longer time.
Being responsive is the most essential step in making any event successfully. Effectively
learning and responding are the parts of the active communications, which are very important
when it comes to increasing the engagement of the community members to the dengue awareness
camp itself. If the organiser is very well responsive, it would be useful for increasing the
engagement because if any queries from the member's side and it will be answered effectively
and quickly, it automatically increases their interests to the events as well (Laverack, 2007).
Gamification of activities will be an exciting way to increase the interest of the community
members to dengue awareness programs because more often the events are considered to be kind
of boring and it decreases the participation from the members. If the organiser plans some
exciting activities or fun and learning activities, it will help them to increase engagement in the
event (Laverack, 2007).
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Part 2
Community empowerment is often considered to be individual competence and self-esteem, as
well. It includes personal control and some direct effort which will be helpful to improve health
outcomes. Effective empowerment strategies depend on the leadership from the people who are
involved in the event especially in health awareness programs; it is much required that the
empowerment programs are run very effectively so that it would make positive changes on the
outcomes of the event as well. It is a process which helps to earn more control over the activities
and resources of the event, including the determinants of the health-related circumstances such as
this dengue awareness camp (Shaw, 2012).
Capacity building is a process where the individuals or groups obtain, improve, and retain the
knowledge and uses of other resources which helps them to increase their capacity as well. It is
an ability to deliver the outcomes of the mission in a more effective manner. The following are
the core domains of capacity building will be very helpful to increases community empowerment
and ownership of dengue prevention program (Shaw, 2012).
Open Communication is one of the most important things when it comes to empowerment and
ownership as well. Community empowerment can only be performed if the stuff about the whole
prevention program of dengue will be cleared to the members or participants of the event
(Busby, et. al., 2015). Open Communication helps them to not only talk about all their doubts,
but it will be beneficial to achieve the empowerment and ownership though.
Shared vision and clear goals can significantly make a powerful impact on the process of
empowerment of the communities during the prevention program. If the concept of the event will
be apparent to everyone such as organiser and participants as well, it will be helpful to make
things easy to engage more people with the dengue prevention program (Busby, et. al., 2015). It
is essential the vision and goals of the events would be cleared to everyone to manage and
increase the empowerment of the community through different applications such as dengue
prevention program.
Community need assessment will be one of the prime steps for empowering the community,
and it would be helpful to ownership of the prevention program as well. It is essential that the
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needs of the population will be analysed effectively so that it can easily understand the needs of
the community. It helps to make the strategies. Thus, the needs and requirements of the
prevention program are bright, more effective strategies will work as well, which will help
empower the communities (Hart & Marshall, 2019).
Participatory decision making would be helpful as well to achieve the empowerments. It will
be useful for increasing the participation of the members in decision making (Hart & Marshall,
2019). It will make them feel worth full, which develops their interests to the events, goals and
its activities as well. It can easily make their engagement and participation vast and high, and it
will be importantly required to increase the empowerment of the communities and ownership of
this dengue prevention programs.
Skills development is essential when it comes to increasing empowerment. Skills development
will be good for empowering such as it can quickly be done through some activities. If it would
be possible that the skills of the members or participants will be enhancing, it will significantly
make an impact on their performances during the dengue prevention program. Skills
development can play an important role when it comes to empowering the communities. It will
be helpful to increase the ownership of the event as well (Xiao, et. al., 2013).
Outcome monitoring is a required step to complete the event successfully, and it will be
beneficial to increase the empowerment of the communities as well. Tracking will make the
process easy, and there are no chances of making unwanted mistakes during the events.
Outcomes should be monitored as well so that if needed any improvements and changes in the
process as well (Xiao, et. al., 2013). The successful completion of the event will be essential to
empowering the whole community so far.
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Part 3
The primary purpose of the dengue prevention program is to educate people about the causes and
impacts of the dengue. It will be required that the participants gain knowledge from the program,
and it will help them to prevent from this disease as well. The following are the models of health
promotions, which are very useful to motivate people and educate them about dengue as well.
Health belief model – It was developed in 1950 in the US. It is to explain the behaviours which
were related to health issues, particularly in health services. It is a tool which is used to predict
health behaviours (Horwood, et. al., 2017). It is one of the most important and utilized health
promotion models as well. It will be beneficial when it comes to motivate and educate people for
dengue.
Social marketing theory – This theory will focus on promoting that information which socially
has some valuable or socially acceptable as well. It includes marketing techniques which will be
very helpful to promote behavioural and social benefits as well (Horwood, et. al., 2017). It will
be an important theory to make active promotions about this dengue prevention programs.
The following are the approaches to health promotions.
The behavioural/lifestyle approach – This approach will be beneficial to identify and focus on
lifestyle behavioural, which will make a huge impact on health itself. It helps to understand the
effect of lifestyle generated diseases, their causes.
Fear appeals – In this approach, the expected fear of the diseases to change behaviour, which
would include risks related to health issues. It shows the danger or harm of the conditions. It is
one of the most effective and commonly used approaches to achieve success in making threats to
people for any health diseases as well (Norrie, et. al., 2014).
The following table will be beneficial to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the
health as mentioned above promotions models and approaches.
Advantages Disadvantages
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Health belief model
 Commonly useable
 Able to predict health behaviours
 Easily motivates people
Health belief model
 Old school model
 Not according for accounting
differences to predict health related
behaviours
 Eating domain only
Social marketing theory
 Impactful Outcomes
 Easily connect with people
 Very effective for health issues such as
dengue
Social marketing theory
 Customer complaints & feedbacks
 Increase usage of personal resources
 Open for scrutiny from the public
The behavioural/lifestyle approach
 Best approach to identify diseases
 Connect with social environment
 Provides appropriate options for
lifestyle change
The behavioural/lifestyle approach
 Vary from place to time to person
 Risk of sudden death and other things
 Not effective for making strategies
Fear appeals
 It prevents risks
 It helps to change attitude behaviours
 Effective for making strategies
Fear appeals
 Not effective for human mindset
 It increases perceived severity
 Lack of efficiency (Norrie, et. al., 2014)
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Conclusion
Different levels of community-based interaction programs have been discussed in this report in
the context of dengue fever prevention programs. Laverack’s ladder of community-based
interaction framework and uses to make strategies for community-based interaction has been
discussed in this essay. Capacity building domains have been identified and discussed in this
essay. The uses of models and approaches to health promotions which were helpful in educated
and motivated people have been discussed.
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References
 Busby, P., Lamit, L., Keith, A., Newcombe, G., Gehring, C., Whitham, T., & Dirzo, R.
(2015). Genetics-based interactions among plants, pathogens, and herbivores define
arthropod community structure. Ecology, 96(7), 1974-1984.
 Hart, S., & Marshall, D. (2009). Spatial arrangement affects population dynamics and
competition independent of community composition. Ecology, 90(6), 1485-1491.
 Horwood, C., Grant, M., Phakathi, S., Wilford, A., Mntambo, N., & Haskins, L. (2017).
Trust of community health workers influences the acceptance of community-based
maternal and child health services. African Journal of Primary Health Care and Family
Medicine,9(1), 1-8.
 Laverack G. (2014). Chapter 6: Pocket guide to health promotion. New York: Open
University Press
 Laverack, G. (2007). Health Promotion Practice: building empowered communities.
London. Open University
Press. http://ezp.tua.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=nlebk&AN=234222&site=eds-live&scope=site
Chapter 2, Communities and community-based interaction, pp. 17-29.
 Norrie, C., Stevens, M., Graham, K., Manthorpe, J., Moriarty, J., & Hussein, S. (2014).
Investigating models of adult safeguarding in england – a mixed-methods approach. The
Journal of Adult Protection, 16(6), 377-388.
 Shaw, R. (2012). Community based disaster risk reduction (Community, environment and
disaster risk management, 10, v. 10). Bradford: Emerald Group Pub. (2012).
 Xiao, S., Zhao, L., Zhang, J., Wang, X., & Chen, S. (2013). The integration of facilitation
into the neutral theory of community assembly. Ecological Modelling, 251, 127-134.
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