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Unit 8 Public Health Assignment
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- PEARSON (PEARSON)
This is the Unit 8 Task 2 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: 19.02.2024
In this information pack, I will be exploring how health promotion has a positive
influence on individuals making a change in their behaviour in order to improve the
health’s population. This is done by identifying who is at most risk in the population,
and monitoring their health to ensure a change can be made to improve their health.
I will be using the campaign ‘Better Health’ to demonstrate how campaigns are
successful in encouraging behaviour change in relation to their health.
Health promoters use different methods such as sharing information, providing
resources and interventions on social and environmental issues, in order to achieve
their aim of influencing the population to make changes in the choices they make, so
that ill health across the population can be reduced. Health promotion can be done
on a global, national and local scale.
A health promoter which works on a global scale is the World Health Organisation
(WHO). According to the World Health Organization (2023), they are an agency that
works under the United Nations, with an aim of reducing health disparities in the
world, by working with different countries to monitor health in different countries
around the world, and providing the necessary resources and qualified specialists to
improve health. As they are able to collect large amounts of data, they will have an
improved knowledge on the initiatives that are needed to be taken, like creating
campaigns and developing the healthcare systems, so that the health internationally
can improve. Health inequalities can also be reduced through WHO; each year, they
create annual reports which includes statistics on a variety of health issues globally,
and each year there is a trend of poorer countries having worse ill health. Because of
this report, countries which are more developed with a higher income, can use their
money to help improve health in less developed countries. This emphasises the
need to have health promoters like WHO, on a global scale, as there is a focus on
disease prevention, emergency responses and health promotion, which can help
influence the way research and policies are shaped, and how strategies are
implemented to address public health challenges and ensure well being of the
population across the world.
The health promoter which works on a national scale in England, is the Department
of Health (DH). They are a government agency, who are responsible for the NHS,
public health, and adult social care. They aim to improve health in the country by
ensuring the correct resources are in place, and that efficient initiatives are
implemented. This includes setting the framework for commissioning of health
,services, funding CCG’s, and making sure that the Department of Health helps
CCGs commission services for their local population effectively, according to the
National Audit Office (2018).
This links to Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG’s), who promote health on a local
scale, and work with local GP’s to improve health outcomes in a local area. CCG’s
are “responsible for commissioning healthcare including mental health services,
urgent and emergency care, elective hospital services, and community care” (NHS
Confederation, 2021). They also ensure health can be improved through different
ways, such as buying services on behalf of the population from different providers,
e.g hospitals, deciding on different strategies and priorities in the local area, as well
as assessing their local needs.
Health is not just promoted through these health promoters, it can also be promoted
through health campaigns. For instance, ‘Better Health’, is a health campaign,
organised under the Department of Health, which aims to promote and protect the
health and well-being of adults in a specific community. Some of the aspects of
health the campaign has a large focus on is helping obese / overweight people to
lose weight, helping everyone get active, encouraging people to quit smoking, and
drinking less. This campaign is aimed at adults 18 years old and over, who are
already experiencing, or at risk of getting physical and mental health issues e.g,
obesity and depression. The Better Health Campaign educates adults on what needs
to be done to improve their overall health. The Better Health Campaign promotes
and protects the health and well-being of individuals, through a variety of apps,
programmes and working with organisations such as ‘Mind’; according to Mind
(2019), they aim to empower those experiencing mental health problems, and
improving the services or support they receive, which will help them have an equal
opportunity like everyone else to achieve their goals.
In order for the Better Health Campaign to promote and protect the health and
well-being of individuals, different approaches must be applied. In this campaign, the
approach used to promote public health and well-being is targeted education and
health awareness and health promotion programmes. The Better Health Campaign,
uses different apps and programmes to educate individuals on the possible
consequences they could face as a result of living a poor sedentary lifestyle. One of
the programmes they have used to educate individuals and create awareness is the
‘NHS Digital Weight Management Programme’. According to NHS England (2022),
this is a 12 week online plan, which offers dietary advice, physical activity guidance
and support, to help those living with obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, to
live a healthier lifestyle. The Better Health Campaign also provides key information
on what individuals must consume, and provides tips / advice on how to eat
healthier, to improve their health. For instance, the Better Health Campaign highly
recommends taking Vitamin D on a daily basis and provides the benefits of it; they
state “to keep bones and muscles healthy, everyone should consider taking a daily
, Vitamin D supplement, in autumn and winter, when we cannot make Vitamin D from
sunlight”(NHS, 2020). By having this approach in place, it will help reduce health
inequalities, illnesses and allow for improvements in people’s health to be made, as
people will have better knowledge on the actions they need to take to live healthier,
which is not only beneficial to the individual, but also beneficial to health services as
there would be less strain on them if people are living healthier. Therefore, this
approach is successful as it uses different ways to educate people on how to live a
more healthy lifestyle, and what could happen if they do not act on this.
The approach the Better Health Campaign has used to protect public health and
well-being is evidence-based responses through environmental surveillance and
intelligence gathering. It is important that the campaign does surveillance, as it is a
useful part of recognising the main health issues within a specific area, and informing
the public on what they can do to treat or reduce the spread of illnesses or diseases.
“Public health surveillance is the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, and
interpretation of health-related data essential to planning, implementation, and
evaluation of public health practice.” (CDC, 2020). The Better Health Campaign has
been able to gather their data through different ways. When collecting data on
mental and physical health of individuals, the Better Health Campaign uses a ‘How
are you? Quiz’. This involves asking a range of questions about their physical
activity, smoking / drinking habits, diet and mental well-being. From the data the
Better Health Campaign receives from this quiz, they will have an improved
understanding of the needs and challenges within a specific area, and what they can
do to tailor their initiatives to the public’s needs, which demonstrates the success of
this approach. An example of an outcome they were able to achieve from this quiz, is
working with another organisation called ‘This Girl Can’. The Better Health Campaign
chose to work with this organisation in Kensington and Chelsea, as from their quiz,
the results showed that “thousands of women have said that they’d like help to
become more active” (Better Health, 2020). This has allowed the physical activity
inequality gap in gender to be reduced, as more women from all backgrounds would
feel empowered to take part in getting active, which would allow for improvements in
women’s holistic health, as more physical exercise classes, services and advice are
being catered to women. This highlights how this approach is crucial in protecting the
public’s health, as it allows for allocated resources to be provided, and strategic
planning to be done, in order to treat and reduce the spread of illnesses, so that
people’s health can be protected and improved. Furthermore, it clearly links to the
aims of ‘Identifying and monitoring the needs of the population’ and ‘Identifying and
reducing inequalities’, as they have recognised the needs of the population, in order
to find different strategies to overcome these barriers that puts individuals at a
disadvantage to participate in healthy behaviours. If these aims was not met, there
would be a rise in inequalities and barriers when people are trying to improve their
health, which would lead to an increased prevalence of certain conditions, and
therefore, would mean that there is increased ill health within the area.
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