HHS Website Observation Report

Since 1980, the United States has taken on 10-year plans that outline certain key national health objectives set to be accomplished during a 10-year timeframe (Shi & Singh, 2015). These initiatives are founded on medical care with prevention services, health promotion, education, community health care, and increased access to integrated services. The initiative, Healthy People 2010: Healthy People in Healthy Communities, launched in 2000. The initiative emphasizes the role of community partners such as

My short-term goals are to enhance my knowledge of medical nutrition therapy, to gain experiences in all aspects of the dietetic field especially in clinical nutrition setting, and to become an RD. My long-term career goals are to become Certified Diabetes Educator, to engage and serve in community nutrition, and to promote wellness and preventive health care for socio-economically and culturally fragile populations. The U.S. population has become increasingly diverse in ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, I believe that providing patient-centered education with respect on the differences of cultural, religious, and dietary practices are the keys to becoming a successful educator in nutrition counseling and education.

Health literacy has been demarcated as the measurement of the individual’s capacity to obtain, understand and process simple health information. It is needed to make satisfactory health decisions and determine services needed to treat or prevent illness. Health literacy requires knowledge from many topics, comprising the patient’s own body, appropriate conducts towards healthy results and the difficulties to understand the health system. It is influenced by many conditions such as our communication skills, age, socio-economic status, and cultural background, past experiences, educational level and mental health status (U.S. Department of

Health literacy has been a problem with our patients. The most vulnerable populations are the elderly, people with low-income levels, those with limited education, non-native speakers of English, those with chronic mental and physical health conditions, minority, and immigrant populations. Nurses have a great role in helping our patients succeed in understanding their health conditions. Nurses can be of great help in promoting health literacy. Sykes, Wills, Rowlands and Popple (2013) defined health literacy as the ability of individuals to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information. The three domains of health literacy, according to Bennett and Perkins (2012) as adapted from the (WHO) (1998) are functional health literacy, interactive literacy, and critical health literacy. Functional health literacy is basic reading and writing skills to be able to function effectively in a health context. Interactive health literacy is the used of more advanced cognitive and literacy skills to participate in health care. Critical health literacy is the ability to analyze critically and to use information to participate in action, to overcome structural barriers to health (p.14). The U.S. Department of Education published the findings of the National Assessment of Adult Literacy conducted in 2003. The result showed that 36 % of adults have basic or below-basic skills for dealing with health material, 52 %

Implementing these lifestyle habits will result in healthier people and lowered rates of chronic illness. One avenue to best prevent the development of chronic disease is to have health and wellness programs in the community, workplace, and schools (NCSL, 2012). If the population was properly educated on how to realistically live healthy lifestyles, then it would be easier to change and adopt healthier habits. This is especially true for adolescents in the school system. If nutrition and health classes were mandatory components of education across the nation, children would be able to learn healthy habits early on in life and more easily maintain those habits as they grow older. Results of these programs would be vastly beneficial due to a reduction in chronic disease prevalence. In addition to promoting healthy lifestyles and chronic disease prevention, discovering and implementing newly effective treatments are paramount to reduce chronic disease. With more advanced technology and medications, early detection and management of chronic diseases are improved and risks for CCM are reduced (Chatterjee et al., 2014). These improvements will not only

The executive branch is a very powerful branch of the government. Decisions made from this branch affect all Americans. It is important for the people to pay close attention to congressional deliberations, as well as administrative decisions in order to be aware of the impact of these decisions on Americans and to ensure the executive is accountable for these decisions.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2008). America's Health Literacy: Why We Need Accessible Health Information. Retrieved from https://health.gov/communication/literacy/issuebrief/

The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is an agency under the US Secretary of Health and Human Services that protects and provides health and human services to American citizens. The agency administers more than 100 programs some of which include: social services, health insurance, prevention and wellness, research, among others (HHS, 2017). This assignment analyzes of the agency’s policies, procedures, and plans regarding unions, privatization, pensions, and productivity.

After reviewing the Medicare website, I learned a few new things as well as had some previous knowledge clarified. First, I learned that Medicare offers a lot more services that I initially thought such as alcohol misuse screenings, depression screenings, HIV screenings, and sexually transmitted infections screenings and counseling. In addition, prior to reviewing the website, I knew that there were two parts to Medicare, Part A and Part B, however I did not know that difference between the two parts and the different services they provide. I learned that Part A is basically hospital insurance that covers visits to a facility such as a hospital or doctor visit. Alternatively, Part B is medical insurance that covers the actual services and medical equipment such as outpatient care and preventative services.

Many health professionals across the county can offer advice and strategies by highlighting actions that particular organizations or professions can take to further these goals of strengthing the system. All health care workers in every department work together in a linked and coordinated manner to improve access to accurate and actionable health information and usable health services. By focusing on health literacy issues and working together, this will strengthen the accessibility, quality, and safety of health care. It will reduce costs and improve the health and quality of life of millions of people in the United

“Health Literacy” a term to define literacy in healthcare. “An estimated 90 million people in the U.S. have difficulties understanding and using health information” (Hawkins, Kantayya and Sharkey-Asner, 2010). Low health literacy poses public health risks due to groups of people not being able to adequately care for themselves and stay healthy. This paper argues the importance of literacy as it pertains to health and also explores the various types of literacy that can impact how health information is received and understood from the general public.

Health literacy is defined as "The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions" (Michael K. Paasche-Orlow, 2010), the word Health literacy first appeared in 1974 in a paper which calls for “education standards for all grade school levels in USA” (Carolyn Speros, 2004) . Some recent works suggest that there is a relation between literacy, low health and premature deaths (Christina Zarcadoolas et al, 2005).

Upon reviewing the community vitality data I came to the conclusion that the health problem that a health education program would be most appropriate to address would be childhood nutritional health and fitness. I came to this conclusion after careful data analysis. Of the county’s adults (18+) 77% ate less than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, this percentage is so high likely because of attitudes and habits these adults picked up when they were children. The second largest age demographic in the county is children aged 10 to 17 are overweight, six percent more than the state average, 88% of children age 10 to 17 are not meeting daily targets for fruit and vegetable consumption and 30% age 10 to 17 watch 3 or

Health literacy is both a consumer and public healthcare issue. As a health care provider, it is not only my responsibility to ensure that you understand your health and what is going on

Compile & describe epidemiological, demographic, contextual, and programmatic data to determine a health promotion or disease prevention need within a community that is related to patient education and Healthy People 2020.