Definition of Health Promotion
Health is the complete physical, social and psychological well being of a person within any environment that he or she lives in. Therefore, health within the aspect of fitness promotion has been described as the existing resources within a particular community, which give a person an opportunity to have a productive life. Health can also be termed as the ability of a person to access peace, quality nutrition and a hygienic environment within the community where medical resources exist.
Health promotion is the way that people can be enabled within a particular environment to have more awareness over the issues affecting their medical wellbeing, which can help to improve it. Health promotion incorporates all the activities that are meant to give people within a communal setup the knowledge to preserve their health through understanding medical issues.
These people are given the knowledge to understand the causes of diseases and other health issues within the community and how they can prevent them (Nutbeam, 1996, p. 321). Health promotion in the nursing practice makes it possible for people to understand the medical situations that are prevalent within the environment they live and the means through which they can address such issues.
Purpose of Health Promotion
Health promotion makes it possible for people living in a particular community to understand the various risk factors that exist within the environments that they live and their contribution to one’s medical wellbeing. The people within such an environment can be made to understand the actions that are needed to eradicate the occurrence of certain diseases that exist within the community because of the existing risk factors. This is done through making people in the community aware of the primary, secondary and tertiary prevention strategies that can contribute to healthy lifestyles.
The health promotion strategy in the nursing practice creates the necessary interventions, which are needed to take into account the health needs and situations that exist within a particular environment. Health promotion helps to create the necessary engagement s with people in a community to make them understand the health issues that exist and how they can be addressed (Whitehead, 2006, p. 171).
Evolving Nursing Roles and Responsibilities
Nursing roles and responsibilities in health promotion have evolved to make nursing practitioners more involved in discharging the necessary services to the community. Nurses are becoming increasingly involved in strategies, which seek to educate health care users on the appropriate ways through which they can lead healthy lifestyles (Whitehead, 2006, p. 174).
Nursing practitioners are now involved in educating the masses on the need to observe preventive aspects of health care as an effective means through which diseases can be avoided. Nursing roles have widened to include inter-professional collaboration with other experts whose work touches directly on the wellbeing of people within particular communities.
These collaborations have been created with social workers, community organizations and health care service insurers. The nurses’ roles have also focused on the usage of screening procedures in some diseases to act as a prevention strategy, which seeks to reduce the level of chronic health conditions being felt by the targeted population (Van Leuven & Prion, 2007, p. 457).
This aims to make the people living within those communities embrace the practice of medical checkups as a means through which they can detect diseases early and seek the necessary remedies promptly. The nursing roles have evolved to address disparities in health care provision through provision of the necessary information to not only communities but also individuals.
Implementation Methods
The implementation methods of health promotion involve a work plan, which can guide the health practitioners on the actions they need to contribute to, to have a successful promotion. Health promotion should assess the health care needs that exist within the environment in which it is targeted at. The priorities that will guide the promotion within the chosen environment should be set to understand the specific areas that need urgent intervention (Clark, 2002, p. 56).
Goals and objectives should be set, which are supposed to act as indicators on the level of progress that is achieved by the health promotion that is applied to the targeted community. There should be appropriate formulation of the interventions that are designed within the particular promotion program and the means through which the interventions are to be implemented.
Comparison of the Three Levels of Health Promotion
The primary level of health promotion involves making people within a community understand the health issues that exist in their society and giving them education on how to deal with such issues. This comes up with a consistent health care approach, which gives the community the necessary protection from that health care problem.
The secondary level of health promotion, on the other hand, involves the identification of the symptoms in the targeted population to reveal the health care problems that exist (Cottrel & McKenzie, 2011, p. 276). This involves screening, diagnosis and offering treatment solutions, which can help prevent the disease from becoming chronic by reducing the risk for that specific health problem, within the identified population.
The tertiary level of health promotion involves management of the health care problem within the population through offering treatment services, which can help reduce the problem (Cottrel & McKenzie, 2011, p. 279). The tertiary level of health promotion offers the necessary support involving the rehabilitation of all the people who have been adversely affected by the occurrence of the health care problem.
References
Clark, C. C. (2002). Health promotion in communities: Holistic and wellness approaches. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.
Cottrell, R.R., & McKenzie J. F. (2011). Health promotion & education research methods. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Nutbeam, D. (1996). Achieving ‘best practice’ in health promotion: Improving the fit between research and practice. Health and Education Research, 11(3): 317-326.
Van Leuven, K., & Prion, S. (2007). Health promotion in care directed by nurse practitioners. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 3(7): 456-461.
Whitehead, D. (2006). Health promotion in the practice setting: Findings from a review of clinical issues. Worldviews Evidence Based Nursing, 3(4): 165-184.