Population Health Policy Advocacy – Obesity Among Non-Hispanic Black Adults
Current State of Quality of Care and Outcomes for Obesity among Non-Hispanic Black Adults
The burden of obesity in the United States has continued to rise with significant racial and ethnic disparities. Non-Hispanic Blacks are disproportionately affected by the obesity crisis. They have the highest prevalence rates of obesity compared to other racial groups. Comparing data between 2015 and 2017 and 2020, one notices a rise in overall obesity prevalence rates from 38.4% (Petersen et al., 2024) to 49.9% (Stierman et al., 2021), an estimated 11.5% rise in obesity cases within a five-year span. Other racial groups, including Hispanics, non-Hispanic Whites, and non-Hispanic Asians, have high prevalence rates of 45.6%, 41.4%, and 16.1%, respectively (Stierman et al., 2021). However, these rates remain lower than those of non-Hispanic Blacks. Despite the efforts to counter the obesity pandemic in non-Hispanic Black communities, there has been no significant progress due to major underlying and unresolved SDOH. The 49.9% is way higher compared to the Healthy People 2030’s goal to reduce the proportion of adults with obesity to 36%. This current failure to achieve the goal in the non-Hispanic Black community creates further health disparities and affects the local, federal, and state health departments’ efforts to achieve the national health goals. Such differences in obesity outcomes require concerted efforts through policy action to reduce obesity rates by over 14% and help achieve the national goal.
Necessity for Health Policy Development and Advocacy for Obesity among Non-Hispanic Blacks
There are significant efforts to address obesity in the U.S. through policy and set objectives such as those provided by Healthy People 2030. However, the current state of the quality of care and outcomes related to obesity in non-Hispanic Blacks necessitates a change in approach to addressing obesity at the community level. Evidently, non-Hispanic Blacks are socially, economically, and/or environmentally disadvantaged as compared to other races or ethnicities in the U.S. (Petersen et al., 2024). A majority of these disadvantages create social and economic barriers to health literacy necessary to combat obesity. Consequently, this creates a need for more targeted and non-Hispanic Black-centric interventions that address obesity from the root causes. Such a community-centric approach can only be achieved through the development and implementation of targeted policies. The proposed policy will advocate for and improve access to necessary health education resources, including nutritional counseling, fitness programs and training, and mental healthcare services, necessary in supporting efforts to address obesity.
Justification to Develop Proposed Policy
Developing and adopting the proposed policy is vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes related to obesity in non-Hispanic Blacks as it seeks to address the social, economic, and environmental disadvantages that hinder individuals from this community from accessing quality information on obesity, as well as obesity-related forms of care; both preventive and curative care. Through the proposed policy, local authorities, with support from federal and state government, will establish community-based education and wellness programs that include targeted health education, nutritional counseling and support, including access to healthy foods, and free-to-access medical and mental health support. Additionally, the proposed policy will improve obesity outcomes among non-Hispanic Blacks as it integrates an interprofessional team approach in the implementation process to ensure all root causes of obesity in the community are addressed. Evidence such as that presented in a systematic review and meta-analysis by Lee et al. (2021) on interprofessional collaborative practices and care outcomes focused on diabetes and hypertension shows that such practices lead to improved patient outcomes within primary care settings. More evidence presented by White-Williams et al. (2021) supports an interprofessional team approach, as such collaborative practice has been linked to improved outcomes in obesity care in underserved communities. Such evidence supports the proposed policy’s interprofessional team in addressing obesity in non-Hispanic Black communities and can provide guidance to the design of such teams to ensure their effectiveness.
Advocacy for the Policy Development
Although the proposed policy is targeted at addressing obesity among non-Hispanic Blacks, it can be implemented beyond such settings as it focuses on providing access to health information and supporting the overall health outcomes of populations. It can be tuned to specific population settings, including schools, colleges, and universities, as well as in specific population groups and general public health settings to provide information and support on specific health conditions. The overall goal of the policy development and implementation is to provide unrestricted and equitable access to health information and the necessary professional and social support needed to achieve improved health outcomes at the individual, community, and population levels.
Role of Interprofessional Aspects in Developed Policy in Achieving Desired Outcomes Efficiently and Effectively
The proposed policy integrates various aspects of the interprofessional approach, including collaborative teams comprising various stakeholders such as nurses, primary care physicians, dieticians and nutritionists, community health workers, and behavior specialists. It also includes community involvement as a part of the interprofessional approach. Such interprofessional aspects will help in the design of tailored and community- and culture-sensitive care and education plans that address the specific community needs. Therefore, the interprofessional approach integrated within the policy will help address the specific social, economic, and environmental needs of non-Hispanic Blacks to improve obesity outcomes.
References
Lee, J. K., McCutcheon, L. R. M., Fazel, M. T., Cooley, J. H., & Slack, M. K. (2021). Assessment of interprofessional collaborative practices and outcomes in adults with diabetes and hypertension in primary care: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Network Open, 4(2), e2036725–e2036725. https://doi.org/10.1001/JAMANETWORKOPEN.2020.36725
Petersen, R., Pan, L., & Blanck, H. M. (2024). Racial and ethnic disparities in adult obesity in the United States: CDC’s tracking to inform state and local action. Preventing Chronic Disease, 16(4). https://doi.org/10.5888/PCD16.180579
Stierman, B., Afful, J., Carroll, M. D., Chen, T. C., Davy, O., Fink, S., Fryar, C. D., Gu, Q., Hales, C. M., Hughes, J. P., Ostchega, Y., Storandt, R. J., & Akinbami, L. J. (2021). National health and nutrition examination survey 2017–march 2020 prepandemic data files-development of files and prevalence estimates for selected health outcomes. National Health Statistics Reports, 2021(158). https://doi.org/10.15620/cdc:106273
White-Williams, C., Shirey, M., Eagleson, R., Clarkson, S., & Bittner, V. (2021). An interprofessional collaborative practice can reduce heart failure hospital readmissions and costs in an underserved population. Journal of Cardiac Failure, 27(11), 1185–1194. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CARDFAIL.2021.04.011
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Question 
Assessment 3
Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy
Instructions
Resources
Activity
Attempt 1
available
Attempt 2
Attempt 3
Write a letter to the editor of a scholarly journal. The length and format of the letter is dictated by your choice of journal.
Population Health Policy Advocacy – Obesity Among Non-Hispanic Black Adults
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Introduction
Note: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you completed in the previous assessment. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.
Advocating for new policies is an important aspect of the master’s-prepared nurse. For new policies to be compelling they need to be supported by evidence. Supporting data can be used to illustrate why new policies and interventions are needed to help address a specific health issue. Compelling data can help sway the stakeholders and gain support for your policy.
Another aspect of advocacy is disseminating new policies and interventions outside of the immediate care environment. This can be done by reaching out to professional organizations as well as academic and professional journals. A letter to the editor is one strategy for disseminating information to a wider audience and to potentially enlist support throughout the wider professional community.
Professional Context
Nurses have the opportunity to use their skills and develop programs to keep individuals and communities healthy. Health is complex, however, and the nurse needs to possess strong advocacy skills to successfully support a cause or interest. The American Nurses Association’s (2015) code of ethics describes the responsibility of a nurse to include working through and with appropriate stakeholders to advocate for the health of people in and out of the work environment. To be an effective advocate, there are several important abilities a nurse must possess, including problem-solving, communication, and influencing others. One way a nurse can advocate to a broader population is through effective letter writing, both to legislators and through the media, such as with editorials and research articles.
Reference
American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/EthicsStandards/CodeofEthicsforNurses/Code-of-Ethics-For-Nurses.html
Scenario
Throughout this course, you have focused on a specific health issue occurring within a specific population. You researched position papers regarding this health concern, and you developed a health policy proposal to positively impact the health of the affected individuals. It is now time to reach a greater audience regarding your policy proposal.
You are going to write a letter to the editor of a peer-reviewed nursing journal. Choose from one of the journals in the Ultimate List of Nursing Journals and go to the journal’s Web site to find out the requirements for submitting an editorial, such as format requirements, topics, and word counts. Make sure you select a nursing journal that covers the topic about which you are going to write. If you want to use another journal that is not on this list, please make sure the journal does address health care, because this is the purpose of the assessment.
Instructions
For this assessment, you will write a letter to the editor of a scholarly journal. Your goal is to be informative about the policy that you developed for your previous Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal assessment, while also being persuasive about the need for and benefit of similar policies in other health care settings. The bullet points below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your assessment submission addresses all of them. You may also want to read the Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions: Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy [DOC] Download Guiding Questions: Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy [DOC]to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed.
Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
Look back to the data or scenario you used in your previous assessment to address this criterion.
Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.
Justify why the developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population.
Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of the policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.
Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style (or the journal’s preferred style).
Example assessment: You may use the Assessment 3 Example [PDF] Download Assessment 3 Example [PDF]to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like.
Submission Requirements
The submission requirements for your editorial will depend on the journal you choose. To find out the requirements, go to the journal’s Web site. There should be a section regarding submissions that will address how to format letters to the editor, and whether there is a word count limit (there usually is a limit).
If the journal does not have submission guidelines for the number of resources required, use 3–5 sources.
To be sure that your faculty knows the submission and formatting requirements for your letter, include the journal’s guidelines on a separate page at the end of the document you submit for this assessment.
Competencies Measured
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:
Competency 1: Design evidence-based advanced nursing care for achieving high-quality population outcomes.
Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
Competency 2: Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of interprofessional interventions in achieving desired population health outcomes.
Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.
Competency 3: Analyze population health outcomes in terms of their implications for health policy advocacy.
Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.
Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population.
Competency 4: Communicate effectively with diverse audiences, in an appropriate form and style, consistent with organizational, professional, and scholarly standards.
Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references.