Essay
Task 3 - Unit 12: Public Health
- Module
- Unit 12 - Public Health
- Institution
- PEARSON (PEARSON)
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Page 1 of 17 BTEC Level 3Unit 12 - Public Health | Task 3 (P5, P6, M3, D2)
P5 | Explain health promotion and health protection
According to NICE, health promotion is about 'giving people the information or resources they
need to improve their health. As well as improving people's skills and capabilities, it can also in-
volve changing the social and environmental conditions and systems that affect health.' (NICE,
n.d.). Health promotion aims to achieve equality in health. It seeks to set aside differences regard-
ing health status and tries to ensure that everyone can have the best health possible.
Some examples of health promotion include promoting healthy eating, promoting health educa-
tion, promoting physical activity, injury prevention and safety. Many factors can have an impact or
harm someone's health. Some of these factors include political, cultural, biological, social, eco-
nomic and behavioural. Health promotion aims to make all of these factors favourable by focusing
on achieving equity in health. This is done by raising health awareness throughout the population,
immunisation programs, encouraging safety and reducing injuries and accidents, reducing the
number of smokers and reducing the number of people who intake more than the average
amount of alcohol.
The Government has introduced several campaigns, the NHS and Public Health England to pro-
mote health and protection. Some of them include Change4life, Every Mind Matters, Heart Age,
Better Health and Stop Smoking.
The purpose for health campaigns and activities is to alert and support the population regarding
arising matters the country faces such as diabetes, obesity and cancer. These are a few illnesses
that take the lives of hundreds of people every single year. If the Government wants to do some-
thing, then they have to create campaigns for the public to be aware of. For example, smoking is
one of the leading causes of heart and lung problems; some campaigns that are in place to help
people stop smoking include stoptober and stop smoking. For obesity, campaigns such as
change4life promote healthy eating and physical activity. One You Active 10 is a campaign that
promotes physical activity too. The physical activity campaigns just mentioned will aim to lower
the risk of people becoming obese or overweight if they are following it. Health campaigns aim to
guide and support the public to make better choices regarding lifestyle and activity to lower their
chances of developing health diseases and conditions that can be prevented by following these
campaigns, for example.
According to IEA 'The Government spends around £3.6 billion treating diseases that are caused by
smoking. It also costs the NHS up to £1 billion collecting cigarette butts' (Snowdon & Tovey, 2017).
Stoptober is an example of one of the campaigns used. Stoptober is a campaign that takes place
during October for 28 days, whereby people who smoke are encouraged to stop smoking for that
period or even quit for good. There is a statistic that claims that if someone goes can quit smoking
for 28 days; then they are five times likely to give it up.
Another health campaign is change4life. Change4Life is a national campaign to help reduce obesity
and increase healthy eating—the campaign launched in 2009. Change4Life focuses on preventing
weight gain and aims to change the attitudes behaviours of people to help them eat nutritious
food. The campaign aims to help families and children live healthier lives by eating better and by
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exercising; it does this by encouraging children to do at least 60 minutes of exercise every day and
10 minutes of activity throughout the day such as bike riding and playground games.
They are also used to be a games4life challenge from the change4life campaign whereby it got
children between 5 and 11 and families the opportunity to play active games together where they
could be active. There was an A3 sheet of paper, and there were 18 numbers on it. On each num-
ber, the child or family member would spin the produced spinner, and it would land on an activity
for them to do. In the end, the person that completed all 18 of the numbers would receive a prize.
This challenge that was in the campaign encourages children and families to get involved with
each other to do some physical activity which promotes keeping active.
There is a health protection book regarding COVID-19 (coronavirus restrictions) that was published
in March 2020. The Government announced rules that needed to be followed regarding COVID-19
such as Washing hands regularly and for at least 20 seconds—covering our face in public areas
such as restaurants, public transport and schools—and staying 2 metres apart where possible.
Health promotion 'is a term used to encompass a set of activities within public health. It is defined
as protecting individuals, groups and populations from single cases of infectious disease, incidents
and outbreaks, and non-infectious environmental hazards such as chemicals and radiation.' (Royal
College of Nursing, 2020). The aim of health protection is to Health protection is the protection of
populations by identifying and preventing the impacts of infectious diseases and environmental
threats and chemical threats. Examples of health protection include immunisation, disease surveil-
lance, screening and genetic screening.
“Immunisation is a process or procedure that protects the body against infectious disease”. (Biling-
ham, Hern, Stretch, Talman, 2010). Immunisation programs give vaccines to babies and children.
Regular immunisation for babies begins when they are two months old. Children usually have sev-
eral vaccines to protect them from infections.
A vaccine is a type of medicine that trains the body's immune system so that it can fight diseases;
it has not come into contact with before. Vaccines are made to prevent disease, rather than treat
disease once someone has caught it. In the UK, there are vaccine programs for children. In the UK,
all childhood immunisations and nationally recommended immunisations for adults, such as in-
fluenza vaccine, are provided for free. When a child's birth is reported, the local health authority is
informed and allocates the child to a general practitioner (GP). The aim of immunisation is to pre-
vent disease in people or groups. Vaccines protect the body so that when someone is exposed to
the organism that causes the disease, their immune system can respond by destroying the
pathogen before it causes disease and reduces the risk of spread to other people. Most children
receive some vaccines during the early years. At eight weeks babies should get vaccinated with the
6 in 1 vaccine, the MENB and the rotavirus vaccine. At 12 weeks, it is recommended that babies
get the 2nd dose of the 6 in 1 vaccine, the pneumococcal vaccine as well and the 2nd dose of ro-
tavirus. At 16 weeks, babies are supposed to receive the 3rd dose of the 6 in 1 and the 2nd dose of
MENB.
According to the NHS, 'Vaccination is the most important thing we can do to protect ourselves and
our children against ill health. They prevent up to 3 million deaths worldwide every year.' (NHS,
n.d.). Immunisation is vital because Vaccines will help keep people healthy. When people skip im-
munisation, they become vulnerable to illnesses such as shingles and HPV. Vaccines are as crucial
to health just as diet and exercise are. Like eating healthy foods, exercising, and getting regular
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check-ups, vaccines play a vital role in keeping healthy. Vaccines are convenient and one of the
safest preventive care measures.
Disease surveillance is a piece of information and involves collecting, analysing, interpreting of
large amounts of data from several sources. The information collected is then used in several ways
to evaluate the effectiveness of control and preventative health measures. Surveillance is crucial
because it provides better prevention and management measures of non-communicable diseases.
When the data is collected, countries can set their priorities and develop targeted interventions to
reverse the non-communicable disease epidemic. Tuberculosis is an infection that is caused by
bacteria. The bacteria tend to attack the lungs, but TB bacteria can attack any part of the body, like
the kidney, spine, and brain—tuberculosis surveillance monitors and analyses data on tuberculosis
disease. Data collected includes demographic, diagnostic and geographic information. Disease sur-
veillance protects the public because it collects, analyses and interprets data. With this informa-
tion, policymakers, healthcare and other professionals can make preventable measures. Commu-
nicable disease surveillance produces timely information for action.
According to WHO, 'Screening refers to the use of simple tests across a healthy population in order
to identify individuals who have risk factors or early stages of the disease, but do not yet have
symptoms' (WHO). Screening is a way of identifying healthy people who might have an increased
risk of a specific condition. The NHS provide screening tests to the population. The aim is to offer
to screen tests to the people who are most likely to benefit from it. Screening is vital because
there are screenings for newborns, pregnant women, breast screening, diabetic eye screening and
cervical screening. Health screening is an effective way to detect a disease early, even if there has
not been symptoms or signs of the disease. Detecting a condition sooner means getting the right
treatment at the right time, and it gives patients better control over their health.
Environmental hazards are things than can endanger people and their health because of:
Biological: infectious agents, mould, pollen, biological warfare agents
Chemical: natural, human-made, industrial, domestic
Radiation - ionising (nuclear) and non-ionising (UV)
Physical - Pollution, volcano, forest fire combustion products, hydrocarbons and weather events
floods.
At work - Environmental hazards in the workplace can include something like cleaning products
not being properly. An environmental hazard is any hazard that is a possible danger to the sur-
rounding environment and people within that environment.
At home - lead paint dust, carbon monoxide, radon, pesticides, and VOCs are some of the house-
hold pollutants that can cause health effects even at low levels.
People become exposed to hazards in several ways that include person to person, food, water, air
and environment. There are different types of waste management. This includes source reduction,
reuse recycling, composting, fermentation, landfills, incineration, and land application. Local au-
thorities are responsible for arranging the collection of household waste and if requested commer-
cial and industrial waste. There are days and schedules for specific areas when collection trucks
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