Health Promotion Plan

Health Promotion Plan

Assurance of healthier communities is dependent on a concerted effort targeted at disease prevention and management. Communities and governments each have a role to play in this regard. While the government’s role is to facilitate efforts toward ensuring good health, communities remain the implementors of the government’s health promotional plans. Communities ensure the preservation of their lives by indulging in positive health behaviors. On the other hand, the government makes policies on health preservation and oversights communities’ efforts towards attaining and maintaining good health. Immunizations remain an invaluable public health tool for controlling and preventing diseases. This paper seeks to discuss immunizations as a community health promotional plan.

Community Health Concern/Need: Immunization

Immunizations remain one of the most effective public health measures to protect communities by preventing and controlling diseases. Immunization is the process of building immunity against infectious agents upon getting vaccinated. According to the WHO, immunization is one of the global health success stories as it has enabled the preservation of millions of lives (WHO, 2022). Both childhood and adulthood vaccinations remain important in protecting and controlling infectious diseases. In the United States, the CDC provides recommendations and guidelines on childhood and adolescent vaccination every year.

In the wake of infectious disease emergence and consequent spread, vaccinations remain the only reliable option to protect communities against sequelae attributed to these emerging infectious diseases. Vaccines have been developed that protect against more than 20 infectious diseases. As evident in the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccinations have provided the much-required health relief to millions of Americans that would have otherwise been devastated by the virus. Morbidity and mortality from infectious remain high. Current findings reveal that mortality rates attributable to infectious diseases are 39.2 deaths per 100,000 persons in males and 29.97 deaths per 100,000 in females. Respiratory infections accounted for the majority of these deaths. Other infectious diseases included tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and Hepatitis B. The COVID pandemic currently witnessed also led to significant life losses in America and beyond. This disease killed more than a million Americans, with over 85 million being infected. Infectious diseases also present a considerable workplace burden by reducing productivity as a result of increased absenteeism and increased healthcare costs. According to Reynolds et al. (2019), infectious disease results in an average of 1-6 lost work days, significant losses of productivity by up to 64% of the overall economic impact of employee illness, and up to 87 billion dollars in healthcare costs per year. These statistics are an indication of how dangerous infectious diseases can be. Vaccines can be pivotal in lowering the chances of getting these infectious diseases and also in minimizing their spread.

Several assumptions and misconceptions have marred vaccinations and contributed to vaccine hesitancy. The assumptions that vaccines are not safe and that natural immunity is better than acquired immunity so there is no need to vaccinate, are common within society. These assumptions contribute to vaccine hesitance. Several points of uncertainty also contribute to vaccine hesitance. Negative attitudes toward receiving vaccinations, distrustful attitudes, and unwillingness to get vaccines are contributing to low vaccine intake. Despite its success in controlling and preventing disease, vaccination coverage is slowly plateauing. Some parents decline to have their children immunized, while some follow alternative immunization schedules not recommended by the CDC. This problem has been attributable to cultural, socioeconomic, and religious factors (Albers et al., 2022). Accordingly, this health plan targets anti-vaxxer communities in Cleveland, OH.

Characteristics of Anti-vaxxers Community

The benefits of vaccinations notwithstanding, many American parents still opt not to have their children vaccinated. Anti-vaxxers are persons who are against vaccinations for one reason or another. These groups have become prominent in the COVID era, where vaccination drives intensified. This promotion plan targets anti-vaxxer groups in the suburbs of Cleveland, OH. These communities are majorly ethnic minorities and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. These groups are diverse, mainly comprising males in their 30s and 40s. They are also of mixed ethnicities, with African Americans and Hispanic whites making the majority. These groups have a physical presence in these areas and often hold peaceful demonstrations periodically around these groups. I will access these groups in community centers around the neighborhoods where they normally hold their rallies and campaigns. The health promotion plan will utilize an educational approach with at least one session per week. These educational programs will coincide with the group’s meeting days to maximize the coverage. During the educational program, these communities will be educated on the importance of vaccines with emphasis on the risk unvaccinated persons pose to themselves and those around them. To evaluate the success of this educational program, the rate of vaccine compliance will be assessed among members of these groups and the community in general. The success of the programs will be evident in case of increased vaccine uptake and overall acceptability of vaccines among members of this group.

The objection to childhood vaccinations in these groups has majorly been due to the concerns of potential side effects, lack of access due to low socioeconomic status, lack of accurate information on vaccines, and objection due to a large number of vaccines. Culture-specific and religious beliefs have also contributed to their anti-vaccine choice, as some vaccines in these cultures are deemed wrong. With the introduction of COVID vaccines, there has been a growing anti-vaccine campaign that has been fueled principally by misinformation. Unvaccinated individuals pose not only a health risk to themselves but also to other members of the community. For this reason, a health promotion plan on immunization is relevant to this group.

Significance of Immunization to the Target Group

Preservation of the overall health of communities depends on how well these communities will comply with vaccinations. Vaccination protects children and adults from infectious agents by lowering their risks of getting these diseases. Vaccinations also break the chain of transmission of infectious diseases, thereby preventing them from getting out of public health control. In the absence of an established medical intervention, as seen for viruses, vaccination remains a viable option that ensures the preservation of life (Orenstein & Ahmed, 2017). Immunizations have, in general, positively impacted the health systems of many nationalities. The incidence, prevalence, morbidity, and mortality rates of many infectious agents have drastically been reduced by intensified immunization measures for children and adolescents. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Health indicate that up to 70 billion dollars have been saved in healthcare costs by immunization programs on childhood vaccinations (Ventola, 2017). This reinforces the need to further vaccine campaigns to persuade anti-vaxxers to consider immunizations. The public health benefits realized from these campaigns are far-reaching, protecting both the present and the future.

While access to vaccines and inadequate information on vaccines still impede vaccine approval and intake, the government plays a role in facilitating approval and subsequent intake of vaccines. The government, through its agencies such as the CDC, provides recommendations and guidelines on immunization schedules. It also provides information on the safety and efficacy of vaccines, as well as their availability, to debunk the myth of vaccines being unsafe. The government has also enhanced access to vaccines by establishing policies that enhance access to healthcare services, such as the Affordable Care Act and the Vaccines For Children (VFC) program. These federal programs have significantly improved access to vaccines, thereby reducing the disparities in vaccinations that were initially apparent (Hendrix et al., 2017). Through community education programs and vaccine drives as part of an elaborate health promotion plan on immunization, communities have been educated on the importance of vaccines. This will enable some of them to reconsider their decision on anti-vaccination.

Health Promotional Plan and Goals

The health promotion plan developed for this group aims to enhance their compliance with immunizations. In this regard, the plan will highlight the benefits of immunizations and the overall social responsibility of anti-vaxxers toward public health. They will be informed that public health maintenance is a concerted effort that requires each community member to participate. Their role in public health maintenance is to comply with immunization programs developed by the government.

The stakeholders in the health promotional plan on immunizations will be the healthcare providers and the community members. Specific information on the community members that may aid in the program design includes their socioeconomic statuses, insurance coverage, literacy levels or level of education, level of knowledge on vaccines, and their cultural and religious affiliations. Information on socioeconomic status and insurance coverage may inform the need to educate these communities on the government’s efforts towards enhancing their access to vaccines. Information on literacy/educational levels may inform strategies for carrying out the plan. At the same time, information on their knowledge of vaccination may inform the need to educate them on vaccines and the vaccination process.

The specific goals of this promotional plan are to increase vaccine acceptability in these communities, expand their knowledge of vaccines and vaccinations, and notify them of government strategies for enhancing access to care. To ensure these goals are met, the healthcare providers will collaborate with community members in this plan. Effective collaboration depends on communication, goal alignment, specification of roles, and cohesion between the community members and the caregivers. At the end of the educational session, each participant will have a better understanding of vaccines and their significance in public health assurance. They will also be knowledgeable on the commonly administered vaccines as recommended by the CDC and the role each vaccine plays in their overall health. They will also be informed on the government’s role in ensuring vaccination and government resources that can provide information on vaccines. The client’s feedback reports and questionnaires will be availed at the end of each learning session to assess their level of understanding of the topic. The questionnaire will be structured to contain short questions on immunization and will be targeted at picking their views on vaccines and the level of acceptability. The client feedback report will also be aimed at picking the satisfaction of the audience with the presentation and the subject matter.

Conclusion

Immunization remains a valuable public health tool. Its significance in preventing and controlling infectious diseases underpins its necessity as a public health maintenance measure. Despite the benefits realized from vaccinations, many Americans remain hesitant about being vaccinated. Nonetheless, health promotion plans on immunization can enhance these communities’ compliance with vaccination. Such plans must address factors that impede these communities from being vaccinated.

References

Albers, A., Thaker, J., & Newcomer, S. (2022). Barriers to and facilitators of early childhood immunization in rural areas of the United States: A systematic review of the literature. Preventive Medicine Reports, 27, 101804. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2022.101804

Hendrix, K., Sturm, L., Zimet, G., & Meslin, E. (2017). Ethics and Childhood Vaccination Policy in the United States. American Journal Of Public Health, 106(2), 273-278. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2015.302952

Orenstein, W., & Ahmed, R. (2017). Simply put: Vaccination saves lives. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, 114(16), 4031-4033. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704507114

Vaccines and immunization. Who. int. (2022). Retrieved 9 June 2022, from https://www.who.int/health-topics/vaccines-and-immunization.

Ventola CL. (2017) Immunization in the United States: Recommendations, Barriers, and Measures to Improve Compliance: Part 1: Childhood Vaccinations. P T. 2016;41(7):426-436.

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Develop a hypothetical health promotion plan, 3-4 pages in length, addressing a specific health concern for an individual or a group living in the community that you identified from the topic list provided.

Bullying.
Teen Pregnancy.
LGBTQIA + Health.
Sudden Infant Death (SID).
Immunization.
Tobacco use (include all: vaping, e-cigarettes, hookah, chewing tobacco, and smoking) cessation.
Historically, nurses have made significant contributions to community and public health with regard to health promotion, disease prevention, and environmental and public safety. They have also been instrumental in shaping public health policy. Today, community and public health nurses have a key role in identifying and developing plans of care to address local, national, and international health issues. The goal of community and public health nursing is to optimize the health of individuals and families, taking into consideration cultural, racial, ethnic groups, communities, and populations. Caring for a population involves identifying the factors that place the population’s health at risk and developing specific interventions to address those factors. The community/public health nurse uses epidemiology as a tool to customize disease prevention and health promotion strategies disseminated to a specific population. Epidemiology is the branch of medicine that investigates causes of various diseases in a specific population (CDC, 2012; Healthy People 2030, n.d.).

As an advocate and educator, the community/public health nurse is instrumental in providing individuals, groups, and aggregates with the tools that are essential for health promotion and disease prevention. There is a connection between one’s quality of life and their health literacy. Health literacy is related to the knowledge, comprehension, and understanding of one’s condition along with the ability to find resources that will treat, prevent, maintain, or cure their condition. Health literacy is impacted by the individual’s learning style, reading level, and the ability understand and retain the information being provided. The individual’s technology aptitude and proficiency in navigating available resources is an essential component to making informed decisions and to the teaching learning process (CDC, 2012; Healthy People 2030, n.d.).

It is essential to develop trust and rapport with community members to accurately identify health needs and help them adopt health promotion, health maintenance, and disease prevention strategies. Cultural, socio-economical, and educational biases need to be taken into consideration when communicating and developing an individualized treatment and educational plan. Social, economic, cultural, and lifestyle behaviors can have an impact on an individual’s health and the health of a community. These behaviors may pose health risks, which may be mitigated through lifestyle/behaviorally-based education. The environment, housing conditions, employment factors, diet, cultural beliefs, and family/support system structure play a role in a person’s levels of risk and resulting health. Assessment, evaluation, and inclusion of these factors provide a basis for the development of an individualized plan. The health professional may use a genogram or sociogram in this process.

What is a genogram? A genogram, similar to a family tree, is used to gather detailed information about the quality of relationships and interactions between family members over generations as opposed to lineage. Gender, family relationships, emotional relationships, lifespan, and genetic predisposition to certain health conditions are components of a genogram. A genogram, for instance, may identify a pattern of martial issues perhaps rooted in anger or explain why a person has green eyes.

What is a sociogram? A sociogram helps the health professional to develop a greater understanding of these factors by seeing inter-relationships, social links between people or other entities, as well as patterns to identify vulnerable populations and the flow of information within the community.

References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2012). Lesson 1: Introduction to epidemiology. In Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice (3rd ed.). https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson1/section1.html

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (n.d.). Healthy People 2030. https://health.gov/healthypeople

Demonstration of Proficiency

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

Competency 1: Analyze health risks and health care needs among distinct populations.
Analyze a community health concern that is the focus of a health promotion plan.
Competency 2: Propose health promotion strategies to improve the health of populations.
Explain why a health concern is important for health promotion within a specific population.
Establish agreed-upon health goals in collaboration with participants.
Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly communication strategies to lead health promotion and improve population health.
Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions; contains few errors in grammar/punctuation, word choice, and spelling.
Apply APA formatting to in-text citations and references exhibiting nearly flawless adherence to APA format.
Your Online ePortfolio

Creating an ePortfolio is not required in the BSN program, but you may find it helpful to create one to attach to your professional resume while job hunting. Online ePortfolios serve two key purposes: 1) to support learning and reflection, and 2) to be used as a showcase tool. Your learning journey can be documented, and ePortfolios contribute to lifelong learning and growth through reflection and sharing. Online ePortfolios can also be shared with employers and peers to present artifacts that demonstrate your accomplishments at Capella.

Using ePortfolio to Build Your Career
As you are preparing to tell your story in the professional world, leverage your ePortfolio artifacts to demonstrate the knowledge and competencies you have gained through your program in professional conversations, performance reviews, and interviews. To do that, reflect on the knowledge and skills you have gained from your courses and the elements you have put in your portfolio, along with how you have already applied these things to your professional life or how you might apply them in the future. Next, create your story or talking points to tell your professional story.

Privacy Statement
Capella complies with privacy laws designed to protect the privacy of personal information. While you may voluntarily share your own information publicly, you are obligated to protect the personal information of others that may be associated with your academic or professional development. Before sharing information and material in any ePortfolio that is set up to be shared externally to your program at Capella, please consider privacy obligations in relation to protected populations who may be included or referenced in your academic or clinical work. Refer to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and/or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) if you have specific questions or concerns about your choices.

Note: Assessment 1 must be completed first before you are able to submit Assessment 4.

Preparation

The first step in any effective project or clinical patient encounter is planning. This assessment provides an opportunity for you to plan a hypothetical clinical learning experience focused on health promotion associated with a specific community health concern or health need. Such a plan defines the critical elements of who, what, when, where, and why that establish the foundation for an effective clinical learning experience for the participants. Completing this assessment will strengthen your understanding of how to plan and negotiate individual or group participation. This assessment is the foundation for the implementation of your health promotion educational plan (Assessment 4).

You will need to satisfactorily pass Assessment 1 (Health Promotion Plan) before working on your last assessment (Assessment 4).

To prepare for the assessment, consider a various health concern or health need that you would like to be the focus of your plan from the topic list provided, the populations potentially affected by that concern or health need, and hypothetical individuals or groups living in the community. Then, investigate your chosen concern or need and best practices for health improvement, based on supporting evidence.

As you begin to prepare this assessment, you are encouraged to complete the Vila Health: Effective Interpersonal Communications activity. The information gained from completing this activity will help you succeed with the assessment. Completing activities is also a way to demonstrate engagement.

For this assessment, you will propose a hypothetical health promotion plan addressing a particular health concern or health need affecting a fictitious individual or group living in the community. The hypothetical individual or group of your choice must be living in the community; not in a hospital, assistant living, nursing home, or other facility. You may choose any health issues or need from the list provided in the instructions.

In the Assessment 4, you will simulate a face-to-face presentation of this plan to the individual or group that you have identified.

Please choose one of the topics below:

Bullying.
Teen Pregnancy.
LGBTQIA + Health.
Sudden Infant Death (SID).
Immunizations.
Tobacco use (include all: vaping e-cigarettes, hookah, chewing tobacco, and smoking) cessation. (MUST address all tobacco products).
In addition, you are encouraged to:

Complete the Vila Health: Effective Interpersonal Communications simulation.
Review the health promotion plan assessment and scoring guide to ensure that you understand the work you will be asked to complete.
Review the MacLeod article, “Making SMART Goals Smarter.”
Note: Remember that you can submit all, or a portion of, your draft assessment to Smarthinking Tutoring for feedback before you submit the final version for this assessment. If you plan on using this free service, be mindful of the turnaround time of 24-48 hours for receiving feedback.

Instructions

Health Promotion Plan
Choose a specific health concern or health need as the focus of your hypothetical health promotion plan. Then, investigate your chosen concern or need and best practices for health improvement, based on supporting evidence.
Bullying.
Teen Pregnancy.
LGBTQIA + Health.
Sudden Infant Death (SID).
Immunizations.
Tobacco use (include all: vaping e-cigarettes, hookah, chewing tobacco, and smoking) cessation. (MUST address all tobacco products).
Create a scenario as if this project was being completed face-to-face.
Identify the chosen population and include demographic data (location, lifestyle, age, race, ethnicity, gender, marital status, income, education, employment).
Describe in detail the characteristics of your chosen hypothetical individual or group for this activity and how they are relevant to this targeted population.
Discuss why your chosen population is predisposed to this health concern or health need and why they can benefit from a health promotion educational plan.
Based on the health concern for your hypothetical individual or group, discuss what you would include in the development of a sociogram. Take into consideration possible social, economic, cultural, genetic, and/or lifestyle behaviors that may have an impact on health as you develop your educational plan in your first assessment. You will take this information into consideration when you develop your educational plan in your fourth assessment.
Identify their potential learning needs. Collaborate with the individual or group on SMART goals that will be used to evaluate the educational session (Assessment 4).
Identify the individual or group’s current behaviors and outline clear expectations for this educational session and offer suggestions for how the individual or group needs can be met.
Health promotion goals need to be clear, measurable, and appropriate for this activity. Consider goals that will foster behavior changes and lead to the desired outcomes.
Document Format and Length
Your health promotion plan should be 3-4 pages in length.

Supporting Evidence
Support your health promotion plan with peer-reviewed articles, course study resources, and Healthy People 2030 resources. Cite at least three credible sources published within the past five years, using APA format.

Graded Requirements
The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide, so be sure to address each point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.

Analyze the health concern that is the focus of your health promotion plan.
Consider underlying assumptions and points of uncertainty in your analysis.
Explain why a health concern is important for health promotion within a specific population.
Examine current population health data.
Consider the factors that contribute to health, health disparities, and access to services.
Explain the importance of establishing agreed-upon health goals in collaboration with hypothetical participants.
Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions; contains few errors in grammar/punctuation, word choice, and spelling.
Apply APA formatting to in-text citations and references exhibiting nearly flawless adherence to APA format.
Write with a specific purpose and audience in mind.
Adhere to scholarly and disciplinary writing standards and APA formatting requirements.
Before submitting your assessment for grading, proofread it to minimize errors that could distract readers and make it difficult for them to focus on the substance of your plan.