PUBH6006: Community Health and Disease Prevention - Essay on Factors

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of community health and disease prevention, focusing on the impact of social, environmental, and behavioral factors on different populations. It analyzes the major social, economic, political, and cultural forces contributing to health inequalities, with a specific focus on dengue fever as a preventable health concern. The essay outlines key strategies for community engagement in implementing health programs, emphasizing the core domains of capacity building. Furthermore, it explores various models and approaches to health promotion, such as the health belief model, educational approaches, collective action models, and medical approaches, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages in promoting overall community well-being. The document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide range of study resources for students.

Community Health and Disease Prevention

Community Health and Disease Prevention 1
Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
The impact of social, environmental and behavioural factors on the health of different populations....2
Major social, economic, political and cultural forces that contribute to health inequalities...............2
Preventable health concern for dengue fever.........................................................................................3
Three key strategies to engage community to implement a program.................................................4
Use the core domains of capacity-building............................................................................................4
Models and approaches of health promotion.........................................................................................5
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................7

Community Health and Disease Prevention 2
Introduction
Community Health and Disease Prevention is a department that covers the role of
assessing, promoting and preventing the illness. This helps in improving the health conditions
of the country. They address all the activities like physical activities, health care and
transmission of disease. In this report the focus is thrown on the dengue fever. Thus the
impact of social, environmental and behavioural factors on the health of different populations
is discussed. Health inequalities is also increasing with time thus the major social, economic,
political and cultural forces that contribute to health inequalities are listed. The first part of
the report covers the health concern for dengue fever along with the key strategies that are
used to engage community to implement a program (Trinh, Nadkarni, Park, Islam & Kwon,
2015). The use of capacity building domain also discussed. The last part of the report
describes the theories that could be used for health promotion.
The impact of social, environmental and behavioural factors on the health of different
populations
There are various factors due to which health of a population is affected. The social factors
include the class, culture and socioeconomic background. The social economic factor
indicates poor diet or unhealthy lifestyle. Apart from that change in the ecological zones led
to increases of microbes (Oxford university press, 2017). The reason of social determinates
include social norms, lack of resources like educational and health care facilities. Social
economic conditions like poverty increase disease as there is no medical treatment available.
The impact of these factors reflects the health status of an individual. The reason behind poor
health condition can be lack of education, poor working environment, unemployment and
unavailability of health care services (Oxford university press, 2017). The health of different
population is all dependent on these factors. Social factors of health reflect the social physical
situations and the location in which an individual live. Thus, these factors impact the health,
functioning, and outcomes of life for different age group.

Community Health and Disease Prevention 3
Major social, economic, political and cultural forces that contribute to health
inequalities
The main reason behind health inequalities is in the way an individual treat their health and
illness. It is the behaviour of an individual that influences the health. Health inequalities are
the differences that are faced by people of different age group. It can be due to
socioeconomic status, disability, gender, unemployment or immigration. The social,
economic, political and cultural factors cause inequality because of the conditions in which
they live (Owen, Salmon, Koohsari, Turrell & Giles, 2014). It can be stated that health
inequalities are due to the health status and the resources that are made available to people of
different age group. Thus health inequalities can be removed by focusing on the most
disadvantaged groups. This approach can be used to improve the health and could remove the
inequalities between rich and poor. Additionally, it is important to narrow the health gaps
between the poorest and the richest (Eldredge, Markham, Ruiter, Kok & Parcel, 2016)
. To remove the inequalities the social gradient need to be reduced so that differences and
equalising is maintained. The inequalities in health can be due to poverty, education and poor
health. Inequalities are basically injustice that needs to be avoided.
Preventable health concern for dengue fever
It is a preventable disease but there is no vaccine available for dengue fever. It can be
prevented by avoiding going in those areas where there are chances of mosquitoes. Using
Lavarack’s ladder of community-based interaction it can be stated that this disease arise due
to climatic change as well as spreading mosquito borne disease. He stated that emergence of
dengue fever arises due uncontrolled urbanization and increasing population growth. The
Lavarack’s ladder community based interaction uses both qualitative and quantitative
method. It is a framework that provides readiness, participation, engagement, development,
organisation, collective action and community empowerment (Owen, Salmon, Koohsari,
Turrell & Giles, 2014). The strategy prepares the community by implementing the programs
so that audience become aware. People become actively involved by sharing their views and
ideas to identify the concern. The problems are identified and then collaborative process is
designed to make use of all the resources and influence system. Community organisation is
used as a structure to share goals and helps in making shared decisions. The ladder of
community based interaction provides interpretation of all the complicated things where it is

Community Health and Disease Prevention 4
a disease (Bowling, 2014). It does not represent a linear progression but builds set of
concepts s that community based issues are resolved.
Three key strategies to engage community to implement a program
There are various strategies that are used to engage the community to implementation a
policy or a program. There is variety of ways that could be used to engage the stakeholders so
that program could be implemented (Bowling, 2014). In case of prevention of dengue fever
the reason and issue is spread among the entire individual so that they become aware and
precautions could be taken. The spectrum of community engagement is categorized into three
levels.
i. Inform- In this all the actions that are necessary for prevention are designed. It is
useful as it is necessary to ensure the community that is affected by the disease. This
works on informing all the people so that they become aware about the situations.
ii. Consult- This is a key step in which the situation is compared and feedback is
provided to make final decisions.
iii. Active Involvement- Community based interaction can be seen as an active
participation in all the issues to develop fast solution.
Other strategy that could be used to gather community attention can be social media
marketing as it captures more audience in single time.
Use the core domains of capacity-building
The core domains are used for capacity building; it was identified by Liberato in
2011. The main motive was to support the journey to community empowerment and
ownership. The health concern currently is dengue fever. Liberato stated that capacity
building is a kind of local promotion use to achieve high degree of community support. This
concept came in the market due to fact of building community, training professionals and
helps in strengthening the awareness regarding the disease in the target population. The
community capacity building is beneficial in case of empowerment people about dengue
fever (Wilder, Vannice, Hombach, Farrar & Nolan, 2016). It helps the people to analyses
activities that need to be undertaken to prevent dengue fever. They perform health promotion
problems so that health behavioural terms are analysed and risk conditions are raised. Various
prevention programs like IIS that is integrated intervention strategy for the journey to dengue
fever is empowered to prevent program. It is strategy to prevent from dengue fever as by

Community Health and Disease Prevention 5
control treatment. It pays more attention towards social mobilization an empowerment. IIS
was successful in removing the dengue prevention by analysing the case of every individual
and then designing programs accordingly (Wilder, Vannice, Hombach, Farrar & Nolan,
2016). The way to prevent the sever cause of disease requires educator. Educator spreads the
programs designed by government and promises to reduce the transmission of dengue risk.
The community can be made aware about the disease by first providing primary education.
Social mobilization also helps in preventing dengue fever (Bowden, 2016). One of the
prevention way is removing poverty and deficiency of all the public services that are
necessary. As from the research it can be stated that dengue transmission occurs in the
country due to lack of social service. The core domain of capacity based community can be
used to design dengue elementary programs by using ecosystem approach. Apart from that
dengue can be prevented by school education program that covers providing knowledge to
students in classes regarding all the symptoms and reasons how this can be caused (Davis,
Campbell, Hildon, Hobbs & Michie,2015). The strategy was focused on removing all waste
and cleaning all the containers and materials that are not used. The reason behind misquotes
in the society is waste material thus all the discards and used material are cleared (Shanahan,
Fuller, Bush, Lin & Gaston, 2015). Thus it can be stated that participation of community
members is important to control and prevent dengue. Various dengue prevention and control
methods are incorporated by government authorities to improve the efficacy and impact of
disease on the people (Kaholokula, Ing, Look, Delafield & Sinclair, 2018).
Models and approaches of health promotion
There are various models that approach that are used for health promotion. Health promotion
is important as it enables the control over the disease and improves the overall health of the
country (Shanahan, Fuller, Bush, Lin & Gaston, 2015). It works on determinates that are
faced by people and promotes the control measure. Some of the models are defined below.
The health belief model- It is a health belief model that tries to explain all the health
behaviours and predict the future concerns. This model is helpful in analysing all the short
term and long term health behaviours so that risk could be minimized (Parsons, 2014).
Advantage- it works on perceived belief that no one will face dengue. The health
belief model could be used for any kind of disease.

Community Health and Disease Prevention 6
Disadvantage- The limitation of this model is it does not take care of person’s attitude
and belief. It does not take care of environmental and economic factors.
i. The education approach- This approach promotes all the techniques and skills that
could be incorporated to avoid the chances of dengue (Havranek, et. al, 2015).
Advantage- It makes the people aware among all the target audience. They gain
knowledge about all the precautions and issues that could be undertaken.
Disadvantage- It can be a complex way as it restricts all the social and economic
factors (Havranek, et. al, 2015). It also reflects that due to knowledge change
behavioural changes also reflects.
Collective action model- This is a health model that consider all the socio-ecological
issues. It studies the interrelationship with the individual and the environmental
conditions (Tki, 2017). It uses all the social actions so that health promotion could be
fast.
Advantage- It follows the teaching process and takes all the health determinants into
consideration (Tki, 2017). It words on the principal that everyone take the
participation.
ii. Medical Approach- The aim of this approach is to reduce mortality and morbidity of
the disease. They first target the group of people who are at higher risk.
Advantage- It encourages medical knowledge and compliance with treatments, so that
patient gains the medical knowledge as well.
Disadvantage- The limitation is that it focuses on the absence of disease rather than
on promoting positive health.

Community Health and Disease Prevention 7
Conclusion
Community Health and Disease Prevention is important part to maintain a healthy
community. In this report the disease that was considered was dengue fever that is a
preventable illness but requires proper prevention. The impact of factors like social,
economic, political and cultural forces is discussed. These factors affect the people of
different age group. The preventable measures of dengue fever are described. Three strategies
that are used to involve the community are discussed along with the programs that are
implanted to prevent the illness. Capacity building is a core domain that promotes to achieve
the empowerment and ownership in the community. Heath promotion is an important part in
preventing the illness to spread and it also creates awareness among people. Various models
that could be used for promotion are listed above. Some of the models that were discussed are
the health belief model, education approach, collective action model and medical approach.
Each model has their advantage and limitations that could be used according to the use. The
health prevention is important and various steps need to be undertaken to remove the health
inequalities among people.

Community Health and Disease Prevention 8
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