Health Promotion And Primary Health Care

Tobacco has and still is the most important public health issue faced in Australia and internationally. (Jochelson, 2006). Many countries such as North America, England, Australia, Canada and Ireland have introduced policies regarding smoking in public areas and restriction of smoking in indoor areas. (Thomson, Wilson & Edwards, 2009). The government, community leaders and policy makers work towards introducing policies that will stop consumers from smoking in public areas. (Pizacani, maher, Rohde, Drach & Stark, 2012). Government intervention should extend public smoking bans so that second hand smokers can be safe, a better environment and less death incidents relating to smoking.

One of the key points in chapter 3 is the Ottawa Charter. The Ottawa Charter is a health promotion model that was established in the 1980’s. The Charter is based off the belief that to be able achieve health people need to have peace, shelter, education, food, a stable income, social justice and equity. This is why people found the Charter so appealing. It doesn’t just focus on one viewpoint for achieving health, it focuses on many.

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 1986, defined Health Promotion as being ‘the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health’. There are three key approaches to HP. The first one looks at population subgroups. It is well documented that not all cultures view health as a prime goal. For example, an addict will chose to facilitate his habit over basic sanitary and physical necessities. The ‘population subgroup’ approach looks to focus on targeted solutions for smaller groups

This essay aims to address the issues associated with smoking, its impact on the public health and how this can be tackled through health promotion, therefore the role of the nurse will be explored in respect of the nursing contribution, especially primary care in community settings. The current national and international policies will be considered as a recognition of its impact to the public health, conjointly how these can support the nurse in delivering the health promotion. Finally, the implications for future for Public Health will be considered.

According to the Australian Government Department of Health website (2013), The National Tobacco Campaign (NTC) is a nationally recognised health promotion movement (provided under the organisation QuitNow Australia and launched by the Australian Department of Health and Ageing in 2011) aimed at providing smokers with the appropriate motivation and support aimed at achieving adequate behaviour change regarding addictive (tobacco use) behaviours (Department of Health and Ageing, 2012). It is also considered the highest evaluated national health promotion campaign in Australia due to its accomplished rates in producing successful behaviour change, the ability

According to WHO- The world health organisation, health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve their health. Health promotion represents a comprehensive social and political process, it not only embraces actions directed at strengthening the skills and capabilities of individuals but also the action directed towards changing the social, environmental and economic conditions. The Ottawa Charter identifies three basic strategies for health promotion. These advocacy’s for health to create the essential conditions for health indicated above

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH, 2007; Richardson (2001) argued that manual groups are likely to smoke heavier than the managerial groups and stated likely reason for this such as food insecurity, substitute for food, social environment, segregation and pressure, lack of good health and lack of confidence. In addition to this, epidemiology statistics reported by Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC, 2013 and Wanless, 2004) stated that smoking is more prevalent among the lower socio-economic groups and known to be key part of the disparities in life expectation between manual and non-manual groups. Therefore it is important something is done to eradicate inequality in the health of the general population.

This is essentially why the Council of Australia created a partnership between all levels of Government, to work with the aboriginal communities to ‘close the gap. In 2012, the “close the gap” campaign, managed by Mr Justin Mohamed chair of the NACCHO, stated that the smoking rate of aboriginals is at 47% and in 2013 the ‘close the gap’ campaign has activities in place such as “Develop Regional Implementation”, which “cut down smoking by 20%” of those over the age of 15 who smoke. This has decreased the chance of cancer and lowers mortality rates and is slowly closing the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous men and women of Australia. The new anti-smoking campaign for 2016 was released on the 2nd of May, which looks at smoking in all Australian people and has also included advertisements with indigenous people talking about their aim to be healthy and give up smoking and not to become a statistic. According to the Victorian Health Department, indigenous people over the age of 15, are “2.8 times more likely to be daily smokers” (Healthgovau, 2016)than any

Equality in everything, including health issues, has to be the main feature of the modern world. National health programs of the US operate to ensure adequate and timely treatment of all citizens. Nevertheless, health indicators of some racial and ethnic groups are significantly worse than of the white Americans. It applies to the Hispanic Americans and significantly affects their lives. The current health status of this minority is far from satisfactory and needs improvements through existing programs and the development of new approaches to address

“Smoking rates have halved in Australians over the past 30 years, falling below 16%. Except for in Indigenous populations, smoking rates have remained at more than twice this level, with even higher rates reported in remote communities” (RACGP, 2013) The inequality that has been faced by Indigenous people is still at an unacceptable level, and has “been identified as a human rights concern by the United Nations” (Dick, 2007). Smoking is a major issue because, “it is the most preventable contributor to the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples” (Ivers, 2011). “Smoking contributes to 17% of the life expectancy gap” (Australian Government: Department for Health and Welfare, 2011). The socio-economic disadvantage faced by Indigenous people leads to the addiction of tobacco, which can be caused by many factors including; their position on the social gradient, education, social exclusion, their employment status and their social support. There is a lack of developed personal skills on the health risks of tobacco, “some Aboriginals don’t identify smoking as a health issue” (Korff, 2014), due to the history of Aboriginal people around smoking. As well as first hand smoke, passive smoking also contributes to poor health, especially for children. Smoking is the major cause for heart disease, stroke, some cancers, lung diseases and a variety of other conditions (HealthInfoNet.ecu.edu.au, 2013). “If we could reduce tobacco consumption levels

Health Priorities in Australia- Professional Report Assessment Task By Chloe Hodgkinson Part 1 Provide arguments as to why health promotion should be based on: i. Individuals, communities and governments. (To support your example please provide examples) Health promotion is defined as ‘the process of enabling people to increase their control over, and to improve their health’.

The next interview was of an Asian American family. This is a military family, the father meet, married and brought back to the United States a 23 year old Vietnamese woman. Family is vital to this Asian American family and respect is expected. Over the years, the mother has adapted to some western ways but maintains certain culture values and passed them on to her children. Diet plays a huge part in their health maintenance and protection. The diet manly consists of rice, vegetables and fish. Along with diet, exercise and staying fit is a big part of their ethnic background. The mother stated to me “Don’t you see all the Asian ladies at the gym? We take pride in staying fit.” To them their body is a temple and needs to be cared for. Spirituality of mind body and soul is another significant part of their health. Partaking in meditation, massage therapy and acupuncture are ways to rid the body of imbalance and place it back in balance to fight illness and diseases. Illness may be attributed to organic or physical problems an imbalance of yin and yang, an obstruction of chi (life energy), a failure to be in harmony with nature, punishment for immoral behavior (in this or past lives), or a curse placed by an offended spirit ("Vietnamese Cultural Profile — EthnoMed," n.d.). While this family is westernized in some ways, by going to the doctor and

At the community/organisational level of health promotion is based on the Ottawa charter action area of ‘strengthen community action’ it increases access to health information, community involvement in health initiatives whilst empowering the community to make their own choices. (Who.int, 2016) An example of this can be displayed through the St George Illawarra Dragons community

“The major goals of health promotion are to help people of all ages stay healthy, optimize health in cases of chronic disease or disability, and create healthy environments” (Pender et al., 2015). This health promotion project is designed to identify and reduce the risk factors associated with several illnesses and disease processes. This project will focus on changing lifestyle behaviors and providing up to date education for the patient to make the best informed decision regarding her environment, health behaviors, and developing a support system with her primary care physician.

Even though smokers do ‘choose’ to smoke, the size to which these choices can validate the effects of their own wellness. An analysis of the empirical literature reveals a diversity of components—such as targeted advertising, unequal dissemination of information about the health hazards of smoking and inequalities in smoking norms—that make the disadvantaged more likely to become smokers and less potential to stop successfully. The paper then considers a range of common tobacco control policies from the perspective of social justice. The social justice perspective developed here poses a challenge for policy-makers: on the one hand, social justice concerns strengthen the case for tobacco control policies because such policies disproportionately benefit the wellness of the disadvantaged. At the same time, all the same, we must be especially tender to any harms associated with such policies because such burdens, too, will come down largely on the disadvantaged.