Community Teaching Plan- Teaching Experience Paper

The United States is facing multiple costly competing social and health challenges that require immediate solutions if the country is to achieve sustainable social and economic progress from the current trends. The U.S. healthcare system, from the national to the local level, has become expensive and inaccessible to certain population groups. This is at a time when the population is facing the highest prevalence of chronic diseases, especially diabetes and related complications and diseases. The growing incidence rates for diabetes, disparities in health access, and lifestyle trends that exacerbate the risk of developing diabetes are predictive of an incoming health disaster and create the need for focused healthcare solutions. According to evidence, involving populations at the local community levels in mitigating and preventing disasters is essential for successful disaster management (Benjamin et al., 2011). Arguably, community-level and community-centered health solutions have the potential to solve health issues and challenges at the national level. Evidence further shows that structural interventions focused on individual and interpersonal factors can help address multilevel structural and social determinants that impact social and health equity (Brown et al., 2019). This article presents a summary of a community teaching plan focused on promoting diabetes health literacy and accessibility to diabetes care with a focus on the Royal Palm Beach Community. The summary evaluates the rationale for focusing on diabetes, teaching experience, and the community response to the teaching.

Summary of Teaching Plan

The teaching plan is based on insights from an interview with Simeon Rosny, a Royal Palm Beach Medical Group representative. The interview aimed to identify health challenges that were of concern to the local Royal Palm Beach Medical community. An exploratory community assessment was also conducted to further identify major challenges. The community assessment focused on identifying the community’s health and socioeconomic status, availability and access to health amenities, the community’s health concerns, and issues that are lacking and can be improved through health promotion. Major challenges and issues of concern identified were related to diabetes within the community, including access to care, insurance, and available preventive and management opportunities.

The main goals of the teaching were to provide diabetes education with a focus on approaches to adopting and sustaining healthy behaviors such as healthy eating habits, improved physical activity, reduced alcohol and tobacco use, and self-care and medication adherence strategies. Other objectives of the teaching plan are to improve the community’s knowledge of available diabetes support resources for the community and individuals. These teaching goals were aligned with Healthy People 2030’s objectives on diabetes, specifically on the HP2030 objective to improve access to formal diabetes education and equitable access to diabetes care, such as access to insulin and other medication. The teaching plan’s goals were also guided by Alma Ata’s Health for All Global Initiatives, which majorly focus on the use of health promotion and the primary prevention of diseases as an evidence-based approach towards offering sustainable solutions to community health problems. Additionally, the teaching plan’s goals were designed to further align with Alma Ata’s Health for All Global Initiatives, focused on overcoming barriers to access to primary healthcare, including preventing, curative, and rehabilitative care such as health literacy, resistance to change, and other socioeconomic barriers of healthcare access.

Subsequently, the teaching plan was guided by the theoretical framework provided by Albert Bandura’s Social cognitive theory (SCT). Bandura’s SCT helped set SMART community health education and healthy behavior goals. The SCT also guides on how to initiate and sustain motivation to achieve goals such as performing physical activities (Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020). Bandura’s SCT further understands causal relations among beliefs, sociocultural factors, and outcome expectations with physical activity that influence efficacy beliefs and adherence to behavioral change goals (Beauchamp et al., 2019).

Epidemiological Rationale for Topic

The decision to focus the teaching plan on diabetes was based on the assessment of the community during the interview, as well as the review of diabetes epidemiological data at the national level and community assessment data from the local community and Palm Beach. Diabetes data presented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2022) shows that as of 2019, diabetes at the national level affected 37.3 million Americans, indicating 11.3% of people had diabetes, of which only 28.7 million cases were diagnosed while 8.5 million were undiagnosed cases. Notably, 29,2% of elderly adults have diabetes, while 1.4 million cases are diagnosed annually. Of concern at the national level is that a total of 96 million Americans aged above 18 years are prediabetic, while a large portion of the population, 89.8%, are overweight and 34.3% are inactive, increasing the risk of diabetes (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022). The high prevalence of diabetes has pushed care costs to over $237 billion in direct care costs and an estimated $90 billion in lost productivity as of 2017.

At the local level, data from the Diabetes Coalition of Palm Beach County (2023) place the prevalence rate of diabetes within the Royal Palm Beach community at the high of 15% of the population. The data further indicates that an estimated 58.5% of the larger Palm Beach County population is at a high risk of diabetes due to several competing factors. For instance, the analysis of the community health assessment data presented by fhealthcharts.gov (2023) shows that 25.6% of the population live a significantly sedentary lifestyle while an estimated 35.2% of the Palm Beach County community are currently overweight and 24.3% are concerningly obese. More concerning is that only 79.8% of the entire Palm Beach County population had a medical checkup within the last year (fhealthcharts.gov, 2023).

Other statistics, although not related to diabetes epidemiological data but create a substantial rationale for the teaching plan is that a notable portion of the population failed to see a doctor due to the inability to meet related costs of checkups as 14.5% of the population lack insurance (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022). Despite the larger portion of the Royal Palm Beach community being middle class and the larger community being affluent, the issues of diabetes and access to care are unignorable of concern.

Evaluation of Teaching Experience

Various measures and outcomes have been identified to help evaluate the experiences with the teaching plan. The focus of evaluating the teaching experience was during and immediately after the teaching presentation was delivered. The major areas of focus include health literacy and attitudes related to diabetes among the participants after the teaching was presented. During and post-presentation questions and answers, the participants indicated an improved knowledge of diabetes, including knowledge of risk factors and preventative practices and behaviors. The participants also had better attitudes towards diabetes and were able to openly discuss the topic without stigmatization concerns. Participant feedback on their experiences during the teaching period was obtained. The feedback was positive, while a review of their participation through asking questions, providing extra views, and engaging during the presentation indicated a positive experience. Overall, the teaching experience was great.

Community Response to Teaching

The community response to the teaching was positive. This was majorly due to the existence of current community and Palm Beach County government-sponsored programs aimed at promoting health literacy, physical activity, and equitable access to healthcare. The local governance and the Florida state government are also invested in promoting initiatives that strengthen the social determinants of health in the local community, such as improving access to better housing, education, and parks. The Royal Palm Beach community is committed to working collaboratively with local health agencies to improve diabetes outcomes and promote preventative action.

Areas of Strengths and Areas of Improvement

Notable areas of strength include the notably favorable socioeconomic status of the major portion of the community, better healthcare facilities, higher levels of education, and willingness of the local community and government support. Consistently, the area that needs further improvement is the way the teaching was planned. The planning process needs to include more than local players. In the community, there is a need to promote the uptake of insurance and the rate of screening for major health concerns.

Conclusion

Diabetes prevalence in the U.S. requires community-level and community-centered interventions to help counter the development of complications, address issues of health disparities, as well as develop sustainable preventive strategies. Diabetes, overweight, obesity, and healthcare access remain issues of concern in The Royal Palm Beach community. Community teaching plans can improve health literacy and access to diabetes care, as well as the engagement of the community in preventing further incidences. Importantly, better presentation of diabetes-focused health education, including aligning such health education plans with the HP2030 objectives on diabetes and Alma Ata’s initiatives towards healthcare accessibility, can improve the overall effectiveness of health promotion and community engagement.

References

Beauchamp, M. R., Crawford, K. L., & Jackson, B. (2019). Social cognitive theory and physical activity: Mechanisms of behavior change, critique, and legacy. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 42, 110–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PSYCHSPORT.2018.11.009

Benjamin, E., Bassily-Marcus, A. M., Babu, E., Silver, L., & Martin, M. L. (2011). Principles and practice of disaster relief: Lessons from Haiti. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, 78(3). https://doi.org/10.1002/msj.20251

Brown, A. F., Ma, G. X., Miranda, J., Eng, E., Castille, D., Brockie, T., Jones, P., Airhihenbuwa, C. O., Farhat, T., Zhu, L., & Trinh-Shevrin, C. (2019). Structural Interventions to Reduce and Eliminate Health Disparities. American Journal of Public Health, 109(Suppl 1), S72. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304844

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022, June 29). National Diabetes Statistics Report. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/data/statistics-report/index.html

Diabetes Coalition of Palm Beach County. (2023). Diabetes Risk Assessment Data Analysis Report. https://diabetescoalitionpbc.org/data/

fhealthcharts.gov. (2023). County Health Status Summary Profile. Florida Department of Health Bureau of Community Health Assessment. https://www.flhealthcharts.gov/ChartsReports/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=ChartsProfiles.CountyHealthSummary

Schunk, D. H., & DiBenedetto, M. K. (2020). Motivation and social cognitive theory. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 60, 101832. https://doi.org/10.1016/

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