The environment in a neighborhood and surrounding community has a profound impact on individuals’ lifespan and health. Disease prevention and health promotion usually aim at keeping individuals healthy. Health promotion involves empowering and engaging communities to change to healthy behaviors. Health promotion programs typically make changes that reduce people’s risks of developing various morbidities such as chronic diseases. Health promotion usually enables people to have better control over their health. This promotion covers multiple environmental and social interventions designed to protect and benefit a person’s quality of life and health by preventing bad health’s root causes and centering on cure and treatment (Raphael et al., 2006). Disease prevention varies from health promotion since it involves specific efforts to minimize the severity and development of chronic disease among other morbidities. Disease prevention and health promotion get related to wellness.
Health promotion is defined as protecting and improving the public’s health. Health promotion can get achieved by planned activities and programs that aim to enhance a population’s health outcomes. This promotion usually enables a community to reduce their risks of disability and disease while making healthier choices. At the population level, health promotion and disease prevention can enhance the quality of life while eliminating health disparities and improving healthcare and related services availability and accessibility. Health professionals can implement various health promotion activities that address different social determinants that impact modifiable risk behaviors (Stanhope et al., 2019). Social factors include the political, economic, and cultural conditions in which a person gets born, grows, and lives that impact one’s health status. Through focusing on preventive measures, health promotion usually minimizes the costs in human and financial terms that families, employers, individuals, communities, insurance companies, the state, medical facilities, and the national government would spend during medical treatment procedures.
Actions on health social determinants can get implemented at community, practice, and patient levels. Health professionals can support patients facing social challenges better through enquiring about an individual’s social history. These professionals can offer people at risk with advice and, in severe cases, refer them to local support services. Additionally, health professionals can also facilitate access to various health services and even stand-in as reliable resources. People usually encounter varying disadvantage types that are not obvious through patient observation. Enquiring about challenges facing a patient in a caring way is vital since it has been proven that empathy and compassion make patients more open about their concerns and symptoms, allowing for more accurate diagnoses and enhanced care. A health professional in a community can also refer patients and help them access support services and benefits (Raphael et al., 2006). Once a patient social issue gets identified, a professional can initiate social prescribing. Social prescribing involves connecting people with available support resources beyond and within the system. Health professionals can also advocate for patients even after referral. This backing can be through writing letters on behalf of a patient to support resources.
In conclusion, various community, patient, and practice level actions that health professionals can utilize to promote population and community health. Practice level interventions can prove vital in promoting population and community health. Professionals can enhance the quality of care and access to services for a patient group in remote areas. For instance, patients can get provided with child care services and bus fare that allow them to attend doctor appointments (Stanhope et al., 2019). Further, patient language preferences can get recorded while practitioners’ language skills are identified and provide interpretation services. Health professionals undoubtedly have a vital role to play in promoting the health of a population and communities.
References
Raphael, D., & Bryant, T. (2006). The state’s role in promoting population health: Public health concerns in Canada, USA, UK, and Sweden. Health policy, 78(1), 39-55.
Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2019). Public health nursing e-book: Population-centered health care in the community. Elsevier Health Sciences.