Principles of Health Education Assignment Sample

Contents

Introduction 

PART A:

PART B:

References 

Introduction

Originally, the social determinants of health are conditions in which the individual is born, grows, ages, and works. These external environmental conditions of a person are shaped by conditions like inequality of income in society, distribution of resources at local, national, and global levels. These kinds of social determinants are usually responsible for the way the health enquires are made like the other kinds of inequitable and preventable disparities in the health status of the people, within the bounds and outside the bounds of a country. There are other societal factors like social exclusion, gender equity, public health programs of the government that play a key role in the social determinants of health of a person in a society (WHO, 2020).

Social Determinants Influencing Sangeeta’s Access to Health Care

Studies show that migrants constitute around 26% of the total Australian population. A lot of the people who constitute this chunk of the population are often under-represented in the public health sector of the country (Renzaho, 2015).

The case of Sangeeta is that of a migrant. As she has migrated along with her family from India to Australia, not being a permanent citizen of the country, she is barred from using public health facilities as she is not eligible to attain Centrelink benefits due to her visa restrictions. In further discussion, we see that her husband is unemployed, she is facing financial difficulties and is unable to afford insulin. Also, the social isolation and the struggle of coping with life in entirely a new place is putting pressure on her, studying these conditions, the following could be the major determinants in her declining health condition:

1. The employment conditions: It is one of the most important factors in shaping the health condition of any person. Lack of financial stability may lead to disbalances in mental and physical health as it may become quite difficult for a person to afford the minimum medical charges at times. Studies have shown that the labour and health policy measures of a country and improvement in the fair access to the employment services and other dimensions of decent work can affect their health conditions. The government seems to have taken initiatives to work on such issues in Australia, but still, there seems to be lag in the immediate response (Benach, 2019).

2. Neighbourhood and physical environment: Although Sangeeta does not reveal much about the case of her external neighbourhood, she has revealed to the nurse that they are accommodating in a small apartment, with family. Cramped living conditions can sometimes play a major role in a person’s health condition. Sangeeta is living with her husband along with two young kids aged 7 and 5, in a cramped area. Studies done on the Australian migrants reflect that self-related general health can sometimes be a major issue in a person’s general health condition. The disturbed mental status often reflects on the general physical status of the person. Though her neighbouring surrounding is not defined in the case mentioned, one can also impose that, owing to financial difficulties, affordability of good neighbourhood is essay problem. In that case, migrants like Sangeeta are forced to live in unhygienic neighbourhoods. Sangeeta also has young kids to look after and protect while her husband is out, looking for a job in the country. These can act as a major contributing factor, as has been noticed in a lot of the cases of migrants (Dowling, 2019).

3. Regional issues: Being new in the region, facing financial issues, surrounding problems and cramped living conditions, the contributing factor of health are associated to the absence of equal prospects and disbalance in the resources to safeguard, improve, and sustain health conditions. Combined, all these factors lead to the unjust differences in the level of wellbeing among the population in a region (CDC, 2020).

4. Gender Equity: Although highly suspected, but this too can be a prominent case with Sangeeta. Reports show that social stratifying and difference leads to various factors in comparison with the differences in a woman’s health in comparison to men. The differential exposures that both genders face can also contribute to the health-damaging factors of the individuals. It also seems that while her husband is looking for a job, she is not. The economic difference arising from that leads again to differential health equity (Ostin, 2007).

5. Community context: This is usually an effect of nostalgia faced amongst the migrants. Leaving own household, group, community, country, etc. can show effects on various levels. The adjustments to the new region, environment, can put pressure on the mind and body of a person. Studies have revealed that different people react in different ways in such conditions. Usually, a minor sign of anxiety can be detected and corrected. But cases like diabetes are very much related to the mental health of a person too. Despite not showing any sign of mental issue of migration, researchers have found that such pressure of leaving own community and migrating to an alien place can lead to mental build-ups which can force the body to release the tension is a form of physical health which then, starts declining.

6. Social Isolation: Sangeeta reveals to the nurse, her condition of social exclusion in the new community. The social exclusion knowledge network has examined the relational process that leads to the exclusion of a person among the people from engaging in social life. The way in which these factors have revealed their association with a person’s health are astounding. The nature and setup of such procedures and their correlation with health status demonstrate the influence of the differential limitations like the polity and economic situation of a migrant (WHO, Social exclusion, 2020).

7. Public Health Programs: These play a major and vital role in the health conditions of a migrant. Belonging to a different country, suffering financial constraints in the new country. Additionally, the pressures of the surrounding environment, neighbourhood and social conditions reflect a lot of pressure on a person’s health. In this case, being economically weak to afford the medical bills, a migrant (like Sangeeta) is usually dependent on the public health programs available in the area. Sometimes, these programs are restricted by various official level, like visa constraints in the case of Sangeeta. Failure to procure the benefits out of such programs due to some official barriers can lead to a further deterioration of health.

The data of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that people who usually chose to migrate to another country are mostly among the healthier members of their societies. Reports show that the pressures of migrations have shown a negative impact on the health of a person who chooses to cross-national bounds. These measures have led the Australian government to introduce public health services that these migrants can access just the way Sangeeta has availed some services at the local community health centre (AIHW, 1992).

Principles of Health Education and Role of Community Nurse

It is important to understand that the three important components of health are physical, psychological, and social. Health defines a state of total wellbeing of a person in the sphere of above all three components. However, this a part of a broader perspective, which was always not the case. The narrower perspectives widely used in the previous century included the norms of the absence of any physical evidence of disease, any physically visible disability and a biological dysfunction in a human being. The illnesses in the form of emotional, social, or psychological factors were usually not covered around unhealthy conditions of a person. But in the recent times, the growing needs of identifying the root causes of disbalance in a human’s harmony, the invisible traits of well-being like the emotional, social, or psychological factors have become a staple form of defining a state of a healthy person (Services, n.d.).

Considering the cases of psychological and social health, migrants like Sangeeta are hugely affected by it. Being in the state of social isolation, dealing with new surroundings along with financial problems, all of this add up to create a new level of mental pressures among such migrants. In these cases, role-played social services can have deep impacts. Migrants like Sangeeta depend on any kind of support they can avail in a foreign land, in such cases role played by that of the nurse of the community centre in listening to Sangeeta’s conditions and acting up in time to counsel her can help in releasing a lot of mental pressures that she might have been facing. At the same time, she can educate Sangeeta to whatever steps she can take to keep a check on her diabetes personally. Thus, we must understand that health education and awareness can based on a lot of necessary principles, some of which are enumerated as follows:

1. Credibility: Credibility is a highly defining factor in health education. The conveyer, here the nurse must be trusted by the receiver, that is Sangeeta. That would only lead to a correct perceiving of the message by the receiver. The message of health education being conveyed should also be compatible with scientific knowledge along with educational and societal goals.

2. Interest: The topic being conveyed should be of the interest of the recipient. In this case, Sangeeta would more like give a positive response to being educated about diabetes instead of cardiovascular disease. The in-health education proper care must be taken to check that the message being conveyed is meeting the needs and interest of the recipient.

3. Motivation: It is a fundamental desire of every person to learn. To awaken this desire at the right moment, giving the right message in the form of motivation. The primary motive in health education is to get people into action for self-care and awareness, at the same time workshops are used to create a secondary motivation related to the understanding of related diseases to a person’s interest. There is always a need of incentive in the receiver, the education must be designed in such a way that receiver can derive personal benefits out of it.

4. Participation: It is one of the very majorly important principles of health education. Health education requires active participation on both the conveyer’s and receiver’s end. Heavy participation encourages dynamic learning, creates a sense of involvement, encourage decision-making and inculcates personal acceptance of the issues. So, it is a duty and right of every participant either individually or collectively to involve themselves in planning and implementation of the health care systems.

5. Feedback: Communication is a two-way process. Health education is not just limited to the role of a conveyer delivering his message, the person has to actively take feedbacks from the recipients and form a response chart of what is being understood and what else could be done to make things further understandable. The health educator in this way can mould the elements he is trying to convey following the understanding of his audience.

6. Known to the unknown: Health education process is like any other research procedure. The educator must design his message in such a way that the knowledge being conveyed is imparted in levels of understanding of the audience. He must begin with what is known, then proceed to general information, then to more complicated and finally to the unknown information to the recipient. This process helps in the deep understanding of the learner.

7. Learning by doing: Nothing is just understood in theory. For the appropriate lesson, needed demonstrators must be made. For certain things workshops can be arranged to that if the recipe does something himself, he tends to understand better.

8. Reinforcements: In the preview of health education, the message must be repeated from time to time. This helps the recipient to retain the necessary information as the message, which is repeated in various ways, is most likely to be remembered by a person.

9. Comprehension: The educator must understand the level of understanding his audience has so that the message is delivered in the appropriate levels and language of understanding. The process of teaching must be conducted following the mental capacity of the audience (IASRI, 2012).

In the above discussions of principles, this is how an educator must convey health education to the recipient. The nurse in the health centre too can play the role of the educator to Sangeeta and help her out at a personal level.

Conclusion

There has been evidence that the different migrant groups show a different kind of effects on the health as faced by the inequalities regarding the health and social inequalities faced by a person. The above discussion shows us that faced by such issues like, financial crunch, social isolation; regional and environmental differences, etc. show a significant impact in a person’s health. It is discovered that it is the initial years of settlement that adversely affect the migrant’s health. But proper implications of health education, counselling, social adjustments over the period can help a migrant to adjust healthily in the new societal norms.

References

AIHW. (1992). Immigrants in Australia: a health profile. AIHW. Retrieved from Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Benach, M. &. (2019). Employment Conditions Knowledge Network (EMCONET). Ontario: Toronto University.

CDC. (2020). NCHHSTP Social Determinants of Health. Retrieved from Centre for disease control and prevention.gov: https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/socialdeterminants/index.html

Dowling, E. K. (2019). The association of migration experiences on the self-rated health status among adult humanitarian refugees to Australia: an analysis of a longitudinal cohort study. International Journal for Equity in Health.

IASRI. (2012). Principles Of Health Education. Retrieved from IASRI: http://ecoursesonline.iasri.res.in/mod/page/view.php?id=20743

Ostin, S. &. (2007). Report to the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health . Karolinska Institutet.

Renzaho, P. M. (2015). Addressing migration-related social and health inequalities in Australia: call for research funding priorities to recognise the needs of migrant populations. Australian Health Review.

Services, E. (n.d.). Basic Principles of Health Education. Retrieved from ER Services: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-contemporaryhealthissues/chapter/chapter-1/

WHO. (2020). Social determinants of health. Retrieved from who.int: https://www.who.int/social_determinants/sdh_definition/en/

WHO. (2020). Social exclusion. Retrieved from World Health Organisation: https://www.who.int/social_determinants/themes/socialexclusion/en/

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