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Unit 8 Public Health Task 1 Assignment
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This is the Unit 8 Task 1 Coursework for BTEC Level 3 Health and Social Care, which a distinction was achieved in. References also included.
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Joyce Grace KapelaUnit 8: Promoting Public Health
Assignment Title: Keeping us well - helping us get better
Date: 21.12.2023
In this report, I will be demonstrating how different strategies and patterns of ill health
have been used, in order to influence public health policies and help eliminate the
main factors that have had a negative impact on the population’s health; this allows
there to be better health outcomes within the population.
According to WHO (2022), health promotion is using different types of public health
policies, environmental and social interventions to address health challenges and
make improvements to people’s health. The origins of public health policies derived
from contributors such as the ‘National Health Service Act’ (1946), and the
‘Beveridge Report’ (1942), which had an aim to eliminate the factors of ill health in
the public. In order to develop public health policies, 3 main strategies are used:
1. ‘Identifying the needs of the population’
2. ‘Planning and evaluating’
3. ‘Promoting the health of the population and minimising the harm of
environmental factors’
These 3 strategies are used so that different aims can be met, which can help
identify how different health issues can be prevented or overcomed.
The first strategy is ‘Identifying the needs of the population’. This strategy is used to
help identify specific patterns, trends and health issues, which has had a major
impact within a specific area. For instance, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and
Chelsea, a health profile in 2019 was released by Public Health England (2020),
which stated that 23.6% of children in year 6 in Kensington and Chelsea were
classified as obese, which is worse than the average for England. Due to obesity in
children being high in this area, this would mean that the Royal Borough of
Kensington and Chelsea would need to provide specific services to help reduce this
number. Obesity can increase the risk of health problems, e.g heart cancer. Because
of this, children should do screening programmes, so that there is a chance for early
diagnosis to be done. By doing this, it would ensure that the aims of identifying and
monitoring the needs of the population, and developing programmes to screen for
early diagnosis of disease is being met. If these aims are met, this would ensure that
public health policies have been developed at a high standard to improve the health
of the population. If there is a continuous rise in children being obese in the area, this
means there is an increased risk of health problems related to obesity, such as
diabetes, coronary heart disease, and high blood pressure. This means that more
support and services for obesity needs to be provided, so that people can live longer
without a higher risk of getting health conditions that can be preventable. Therefore,
when identifying health needs of a population, it should be monitored and screening
programmes should be in place, so that initiatives to reduce specific health issues
can be implemented, so that the overall health of the public can be improved.
,The second strategy is ‘Planning and Evaluating’: The Department of Health (DH),
conducts studies on different aspects of the country’s health and gathers key
information from different organisations or agencies within the UK. This is done so
that the top strategies for assisting and supporting people with their health, can be
planned and implemented. Through this, different organisations or agencies can
provide ways to improve health and social care services. In Kensington and Chelsea,
there has been an increasing
trend of mental health issues,
such as anxiety and
depression in the last couple
of years; this is due to
different factors such as high
levels of deprivation, chronic
diseases, lack of physical
activity in the areas, as well
as Grenfell. Because of these
factors, there has been a
negative impact on the health
and wellbeing of individuals
in the area.
For instance, research from
JSNA Info (2019), from 2011
to 2018 has shown that the
anxiety trend in Kensington
and Chelsea had increased
from a mean score of around
3.0 to around 3.8. Kensington
and Chelsea wants to tackle
these issues through evaluating the main causes and priorities, in order to find the
right strategies to make a difference, such as the ‘Change 4 Life Campaign’ and the
‘Community Strategy 2008 - 2018’. By introducing different strategies and campaigns
when ‘planning and evaluating’, it will help meet the aims of planning national
provision of health care and promoting the health of the population, and identifying
and reducing inequalities. These aims would ensure the appropriate services are
being provided to improve health, and that rising inequalities and trends are being
lowered.
The third strategy is ‘Minimising harm from the environment’. This strategy is used to
identify the main environmental factors that have a negative impact on people’s
health, which can cause diseases or illnesses. This strategy involves promoting
recycling and waste management, food safety, and reducing pollution levels. In
Kensington and Chelsea, pollution has been a major issue they have been trying to
tackle for the past couple of years. This is due to the severe impacts pollution can
bring, such as respiratory illnesses, difficulty in breathing and lung cancer. In 2020, a
report from RBKC (2021) stated that a coroner ruled out that the death of a young
girl was caused by exposure to air pollution, severe asthma, and acute respiratory
failure in February 2013. Because of this, it reinforced the need for Kensington and
Chelsea to improve the air quality in the area, as the air quality was confirmed as the
number one environmental priority. This has been able to slowly improve throughout
the last couple years through creating a new Air Quality Action Plan, as well as a
, new Climate Change and Biodiversity Action Plan. By having strategies like these in
place, the aim of protecting society from threats to health and wellbeing will be met;
this will mean that people’s health can improve as environmental factors that have
detrimental impacts can be identified, so that solutions can be found to reduce it.
It is important that information in regards to the population’s health is always being
monitored, as it can allow more public health policies to be created, and is useful for
resources to be put in place. When the health of the public is being monitored, there
will be better outcomes and an improvement in people’s health. This can be done on
a global, governmental, national and regional scale, through the use of different
statistics and studies, so that we are aware of the current patterns of health and
diseases affecting the population.
An organisation that plays an important role in public health is the ‘World Health
Organisation’ (WHO), as they monitor health on a global scale. According to the
World Health Organization (2019), they are a team of 8000+ professionals which
includes epidemiologists, managers, doctors, and scientists, as well as the world’s
leading public health experts, who work together in order to achieve a goal. By
working together, they are able to improve health for everyone globally in a variety of
ways:
- Coordinating the world’s response to health emergencies.
- Promoting health and wellbeing.
- Preventing disease.
- Expanding access to healthcare. (World Health Organization, 2019).
Since WHO monitors health on a global scale, they can gather statistics from
different countries, to identify current health inequalities amongst countries and find
ways to manage and improve this. For instance, WHO looked at the levels and
trends in maternal mortality globally between 2000-2020. The World Health
Organization (2023) stated that in 2020, 13 countries had a very high maternal
mortality ratio (between 500 to over 1000), of which 11 of these countries were in
Africa, and 2 were in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Because of these statistics,
it illustrates clear inequalities and would reinforce the need for WHO to implement
different strategies and interventions to prevent maternal deaths in these countries.
This also reinforces the need for public policies to be in place, so that ill health
problems, like maternal deaths can be reduced, and the maternity care women are
being provided with can be improved. WHO have implemented their strategies and
public health policy called ‘Strategies toward ending preventable maternal mortality
(EPMM)’ and ‘Ending preventable maternal mortality: a renewed focus for improving
maternal and newborn
health and well-being’,
in order to support
different countries in
various ways, such as
addressing health
inequalities in maternal
care, strengthening
health systems, and
ensuring accountability
in order to improve
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