Health Promotion: Strategies, Arguments, and Government Role

This report delves into the multifaceted realm of health promotion, examining its significance, strategies, and the pivotal role of individual agency. It begins by defining health promotion and its impact on national and global scales, emphasizing the shift from individual behavior to broader societal factors. The report highlights the importance of health promotion in fostering awareness, building supportive environments, and promoting healthy practices. It then explores the individual's capacity to control their health, advocating for transparent and reliable health policies. Furthermore, the report analyzes the effectiveness of investing in preventive healthcare over treating sickness and disease. It also presents arguments for and against health promotion, acknowledging ethical and social drawbacks while emphasizing the benefits of a healthier lifestyle for all age groups. The report concludes by referencing relevant literature and resources, providing a comprehensive overview of the subject matter.

HEALTH PROMOTION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1. Importance of health promotion.........................................................................................1
Impact of Health Promotion on the nation and the world......................................................2
Role of Government in health promotion...............................................................................2
2. Individual's control at individual's health level..................................................................3
3. Effectiveness of strategies to invest in preventive healthcare rather than sickness and
disease.....................................................................................................................................3
4. Provide an argument for and against health promotion......................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Health promotion is those processes which enable people to increase their control over
and improving their health moving focus from individual behaviour to wider range of society.
The current assignment will review the C-Span health promotion with determine importance of
health promotion, individual role into controlling health and explaining importance of health
promotion.
1. Importance of health promotion
Health Promotion (HP) is defined as the methodological procedure in which people are
made aware and realise about the significance of healthy lifestyle at both personal and
professional levels. Herein there is a need to focus on understanding the behavioural approaches
adopted by individuals through socio-economic and environmental interventions. It is important
because it assists in developing skills and gain knowledge about the health services by building
some supportive and constructive surroundings. Moreover, this promotes the well-being of
individuals through adopting healthy practices and preventing the onset of any infection or
illness.
In addition to the above, this type of promotion is useful in strengthening of the entire
community through active action plans by creating healthy policies for the welfare of the public.
There are three fundamental strategies for HP and it consists of enabling, mediating and
advocating (Brant, Myers and Runge, 2017). This supports in re-orienting the services related to
health sector in profound ways through implementation of three fundamental strategies. For
instance, it helps in generating awareness regarding the immunizations in order to safeguard
from the spread of infections before its occurrence and aids in minimising the risks associated
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with it. As the main aim of strategy will be creating higher budget for promotion and awareness
rather than having high investment into prevention of disease like that of heart problems.
Impact of Health Promotion on the nation and the world
The impact of HP on the United States is crucial in terms of generating awareness in all
the age groups of population at every stage of life. There is a need to make them understand the
importance of adopting healthy lifestyle habits and replacing smoking and consuming of alcohol
and other illegal drugs with active participation in yoga and orientation towards organic and
vegetarian food. Alongside, people must have education and knowledge to know about policies
for the existing determinants of health like quality, food security etc (Pacquiao and Purnell,
2018). From the C-Span Health Promotion, the focus is still on wellness and preventive
measures, unlike highlighting the features in regard with the diseases or sickness.
With reference to the world, health promotion is considered essential to catalyse the
affordability, quality and delivery of services to the people suffering from any disease. Lack of
education and lower poverty rates lead towards the poor and ineffective health promotion
services and has resulted in the outbreaks of several epidemics such as HIV, Hepatitis, Swine flu
etc (C-Span Health Promotion link, 2019). Thus, HP has become one of the burning issues which
have been undertaken by all the countries with strict compliance for policy formulation and
proper focus to provide healthy literacy to mitigate the mortality rate.
Role of Government in health promotion
HP is one of the tools for practical execution for promoting health literacy and education
and with the government participation, it would be done more effectively. The government has
the power to regulate, control and provide financial aid for health related concepts like insurance,
subsidized availability of medication and more (Asada and et.al., 2018). Moreover, their
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contribution lies in overseeing the initiatives and frictionless promotion for conducting research
etc. It also looks after the quality and safety of the medical equipment and provides mandatory
regulations to maintain the technical standards and code of conduct by the service users. For e.g.
Obama administration’s National Prevention Health Promotion Strategy focused on increasing
Healthy Americans under the Health Care Law 2010. For instance, council of 17 members were
formed by combined efforts of governmental agencies under The Affordable Care Act to focus
on the prevention strategies and minimising the investments required for other tools.
2. Individual's control at individual's health level
There is a necessary concerns attached with bringing self-awareness among the public to
provide solutions when any emergency or critical situation occurs. In regard to this, the major
purpose is to make an individual self-sufficient and independent when dealing with health issues.
This is possible when the health related policies and insurance are transparent and reliable, which
is currently missing from the US health policy system. Additionally, it is impossible to establish
policies at widespread levels and organise events for people awareness, thus there is a need of
community level participation to provide affordable care (Pacquiao and Purnell, 2018).
Individual's perspectives must be supported under the National Preventive Strategy. One should
know how to have a proper meal, maintain clean surroundings and must be hygienic. One
individual person can also be responsible for bringing smoke less society by not smoking at
public places which may harm them or others.
3. Effectiveness of strategies to invest in preventive healthcare rather than sickness and disease
In order to look for life long impact, it is effective strategy to invest in preventive health
care and not spending on treatment plans for any disease or sickness. This paves the path of
having standard of healthy living at reasonable pricing and improving the qualitative services by
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providing the delivery of health related care in proper and hygienic environment. However, it
would provide a platform for the public to gain knowledge and basic skills set to maintain a
healthy and germ free environment (Asada and et.al., 2018). Moreover, in the longer run, such
strategies support in eliminating of the additional funding which is required for researches and
studies conducted.
With respect to this, the people would have vigilance in overcoming the emergency
situations and understanding the symptoms in context to diseases like Biploar syndrome, yellow
fever etc.
4. Provide an argument for and against health promotion
There is an attached ethical and social drawbacks with health promotion. Thus, insurance
is expensive and not affordable for people with additional burden of medical debts leading to
bankruptcy. Alongside, there is no transparency in terms of the provided medical services for the
patients and has minimal concentration on the primary services for acute and interventional
management.
On the other hand, the focus is to uptake the expertise of the best trained professionals in
all the specialities. Moreover, the awareness generated would reach a wider range of people from
all age groups and support in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Asada, Y. & et.al. (2018). Evaluating structural change approaches to health promotion: An
exploratory scoping review of a decade of US progress. Health Education & Behaviour.45(2).
153-166.
Brant, H. K., Myers, N., & Runge, K. L. (2017). Promotion, Protection, and Entrepreneurship:
Stakeholder Participation and Policy Change in the 21st Century Cures Initiative. Politics &
Policy.45(3). 372-404.
Pacquiao, D., & Purnell, L. (Eds.). (2018). Global applications of culturally competent health
care: guidelines for practice. Springer International Publishing.
Online
C-Span Health Promotion link. 2019. [Online]. Accessed through:
<https://www.c-span.org/video/?300273-5/health-promotion-strategy>.
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