Promoting health and preventing illness

Question 1

What is Disease prevention?

What is health promotion?

Answer 1

Disease prevention actions aimed at eradicating, eliminating, or minimising the impact of disease and disability, or if none of these is feasible, retarding the progress of disease and disability. (taking direct actions to prevent disease and promote heatlh)

Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over their health and its determinants, and thereby improve their health. ( avocating for health)

Health promotion “offers a positive and inclusive concept of health as a determinant of the quality of life and encompassing mental and spiritual well-being.”

Direct, deliberate actions vs persuasion // treating negative vs promoting positive (positive psychology)

Question 2

Distinguish between the concepts of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention

Answer 2

Primary (pre disease) - activities aimed to prevent disease or illness occuring in the first place

• vaccine, health education

service - public health

Secondary (latent or early stage) - (1) Early detection of disease ; (2) Early trt to halt progression

• biomarkers ( saliva screening) , breif interventions, and provide adequate trt of diesease

service - GP and hospital

Tertiary (symptomatic disease) - Limit damage of the disease, reduce progression and maximise QOL

Rehab programs, pain management

service - palliative care, hospitals

Question 3

For health promotion models to be effective they need to be multifacited

1. Describe the range of activities that encourage health promotion
2. Describe Ewles & Simnett’s health promoion model

Answer 3

1.Better public health policies - create policies that improve health and limit the detriment of other policies on health

Create supportive environments - healthy choice becomes the easy choice

Reinforce community actions - Empowering communities to identify and address their health concerns

To develop personal skills - provide health education so people can participate in health promoting behaviours

Reorient health services from reaction to prevention

2.Ewles & Simnett’s DESCRIBES five APPROACHES in HP

SEM BC

top down

Medical – relies on medical view of health, includes primary prevention, secondary prevention

Societal Change – focuses on creating the right healthier environment - – local and national levels

Educational – aim is to provide information to enable people to make informed choices about their health

individual

Client Centered / Empowerment – Enabling people to take more control, can be individual or community focused – retains autonomy to choose what to change

Behaviour Change approach – very popular, retains role for health professional, models of behaviour change, adresses what people’s reluctance to being healthier are.

Question 4

Describe Beattie’s Model of Health Promotion

Answer 4

Question 5

Summarise

• difference btw disease prevention and health promotion
• three levels of prevention
• describe the range of activities that encompass health promotion, using models of the entity of health promotion

Answer 5

• Prevention is about disease and disability
• Health Promotion is about health and well-being (positive & holistic)

Disease prevention

Three levels of prevention each with a different emphasis and intervention strategies:

Primary Prevention – stopping a disease from starting

Secondary Prevention – find and treat disease early to halt or slow progression

Tertiary Prevention – limiting damage from disease & maximise quality of life

Health Promotion

Health Promotion needs to be at many levels, large range of interventions possible

2 models

Question 6

Define health inequality

3 models that explain halth inequality

Answer 6

systematic differences in health between different social groups

3 explanitory models:

health behvaiour and culture

cultural and social norms dictate how people shoud behave so

Material

Psychosocial

Question 7

Evidence for how health inequalities can be tackled

Answer 7

Health inequalities can be reduced by:

Reduce the social gradient (Progressive universalism)

Action across all social determinants

Action across all sectors

Participatory decision making at local level

•Aim = a more equal distribution of health chances across socio-economic groups ie reduce the gradient

• Need absolute improvements for all groups but a rate of improvement which increases at each step downwards on the socio-economic ladder
• Provide resources and services at a progressively greater level as needs increase
• This is progressive or proportionate universalism