Health Promotion as Inferred from World Health Organization

Health Promotion and its Importance

Health promotion as inferred from World Health Organization (2018) is imperative for helping people to improve their overall health. The lessons and exposure obtained from health promotions informs the target population on the importance of having more control of their health. Through providing them with the essential health information and educating them in regards to the health challenges that they face, they learn and adopt better ways of living healthy. In so doing, they are enlightened to make better health choices for managing various types of chronic illnesses as well as injuries (Weaver, Ball, Kim, and Kiel, 2016). In addition, health promotion raises awareness for people to realize that health funds and Medicare opportunities are equal for everybody. As such, there is the need to conduct health promotions to facilitate establishment of better health planning strategies, setting priorities and making decisions though community actions enabling the public participation in relation to address health matters (WHO, 2018).

Objectives of the Health Promotion Event

The aims and objective for this event were to create and enhance the public’s knowledge and understanding of impacts of high intake of sugar on an individual’s health and to find out whether the public is informed on the recommended amount of sugar that one should take on a daily basis. According to NHS (2017), high sugar intake is linked to tooth decay, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart diseases, thus, to avoid or manage the aforementioned health conditions, NHS (2017) recommendation is to take approximately not more than 30 grams of sugar per day. This paper, therefore, is an evaluation of the outcomes of the health promotion event.

Data Analysis

Figure 1: A Pie Chart for the Demographic Data of the Event Attendants

From the figure 1 above, it can be inferred that during the health promotion event, 12% of the attendants were between the age 18 to 30, 13% belonged to the age group 31-45, 50% were of the age 46-59, 21% were aged 60-75 years, and only 4% were aged 75 years and above. The observable trend is that the need to access health information increase with increase in age and then finally begins to drop. Gutierrez et al. (2014), explains that the 21st century generation have reversed the information asymmetry in which health physicians were the dominant source of health information to the public. The use of the internet has transformed the health sector by enabling access to health related contents, thus, the public have the opportunity and have exploited to search for health information outside the health care environment (Pauget and Dammak, 2018, p.49; Butcher, Bulechek, Dochterman, and Wagner, 2018,p.113). From such a perspective, it is understandable that the need to attend the health promotion event by people of the age 46-59 was due to inability to access certain health information since majority of people in that age group are not used to the internet of things. The decrease corresponds to the realization that many people in the age group of 60-75 already have subscribed or have family doctors whom they consult for health care needs, thus, only those who had no access to such services found it necessary to attend.

Figure 2: A bar graph showing the respondents knowledge about sugar before attending the health promotion event

The figure 2 above depicts the statistical revelations that prior to the respondents attending the health promotion, approximately about 42 percent of the attendants had good knowledge of the impacts of sugar intake in their bodies and there was no one in the group with poor knowledge of the use of sugar and its effects on the human body. Similarly, another group of the population constituting about 42% who attended the health outreach program before the event answered that they had below average knowledge about sugar intake in their body. On the other hand, those with average knowledge in between average and below average were constituted 8% each. Inferring from Alansari, Soomro, Belgaum, and Shamshirband, (2018), such a finding relates to the current trend in which people search for health information online. Nevertheless, those with good knowledge are those who have occasionally consulted their family physicians or found it necessary to inquire from their general practice physicians.

Figure 3: A bar graph for the Increased Awareness

Figure 3 show that health promotion increased the 24 attendants’ awareness of the impacts of sugar intake by 62% and 38% that is 15 and 9 respondents respectively. The group found their knowledge of sugar intake increased significantly and moderately. None of the attendants made a record of the event being unimportant or not at all being irrelevant. Despite people having access to online health information, face-to-face information, inquiries, and explanations prove to be more effective based on the intense level of interaction (Clavier & Leeuw, 2014). Access to and transfer of information about health conditions and increasing the information search behaviour of a population is important, however, people feel more informed when they are educated on the evidence-based methods of managing diseases (Miller, 2013, p.678; Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2017). The health promotion was based on advising people on recommended levels of sugar intake in the body and the permitted amount to consume on a daily basis. As such, many people who attended the event found it to be more important.

Figure 4: A Bar Graph for the Respondents’ Responses towards Adoption of Sugar Swap

According to Kemm, (2014, p78), people are only willing to adopt changes when the change is making sense. In light of the health promotion event outcome, 79%, 16%, and 5% representing the numbers of those very likely, likely and maybe to adopt swaps of suggested sugar intake respectively shows how informative and educative the outreach was. Majority of the respondents who were willing to adopt the suggested swaps must have been convinced by evidence regarding the effectiveness of the recommended measures (Pandya, 2010, p.234; Ancker et al., 2015, p.67).

Figure 5: A pie chart showing respondents’ feedback on their level of satisfaction with the health promoters’ explanations.

In examining the level of satisfaction as per the respondents’ feedbacks, the health promoters exhibited mastery of the health subjects that they delved into. As noted in reference to Abdelhak, Grostick, and Hanken, (2014) and Naidoo and Wills (2016), they managed to obtain a scorecard of 54% of the respondents noting that their questions were extremely well answered, 42% noted that their questions were very well responded to, 4% indicating that their questions were somewhat well answered, and 0% respectively for not so well and not well at all responses by applying multidisciplinary models as well as a framework capable of capturing the audiences’ needs. Through effective communication, the promoters integrated various theoretical perspectives to address the respondents’ questions regarding the impact of sugar intake. Moreover, the health promoters had a better understanding of the respondents and their health challenges.

Figure 6: A pie chart showing respondents’ feedback on ever receiving information about the impacts of sugar intake from their G.P surgery.

Figure 6 above shows that 37% of the population reached by the health promotion program had access to information about sugar intake from their general practice surgery providers, while 63% have not had access to such information. As inferred from Abdelhak, Grostick, and Hanken (2014), there are mainly two reasons for the noted results. First, there is a higher likelihood that the majority of the population has not been attended to by the general practice healthcare providers. Secondly, the general practice providers often only treat common medical conditions. In cases where patients have urgent medical needs as well as specialized treatments, the general practitioners always refer them to various health facilities that provide the needed medical services. As such, they do not find it necessary to educate or inform the patients on certain medical information and conditions unless inquired by the patients.

Conclusion

Ultimately, it can be noted that health promotions are very important health awareness outreach programs that inform and enhance people’s knowledge about disease avoidance and management. Following the respondents’ admission to that they were enlightened and had their awareness of the impacts of intake of sugar increased and to attend such programs in the future, it is inferred that groundwork health promotion activities enrich the public’s awareness of health concerns more effectively compared to other approaches such as the internet.

Explanation of where 42% comes from.

1. From the excel sheet, you recorded that the scores ranged from 1 to 5 such that 1 represented people with Good Knowledge about sugar while 5 represented people with poor knowledge. Based on that, respondents who rated themselves with 1 to denote having “GOOD KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SUGAR BEFORE THE HEALTH PROMOTION EVENT” were 10. Therefore, [(10/24)*100] = 41.6666666667% which I rounded off to 42% and used the word approximate. Also, since you specifically need a graph highlighting knowledge about sugar, I am taking this information to be specifically under sugar information as opposed to mixing it with demographic data.

2. For the last chart, it is the colours that were confusing. I have therefore, made the key relatively larger and explained the data verbally.

References

World Health Organization. (2018). Health Promotion. Accessed on 08/05/18 from

http://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/previous/ottawa/en/index1.html

NHS (2017) How does sugar in our diet affect our health? Accessed on 08/05/18 from

https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/sugars.aspx

Alansari, Z., Soomro, S., Belgaum, M.R. and Shamshirband, S., 2018. The Rise of Internet of Things (IoT) in Big Healthcare Data: Review and Open Research Issues. In Progress in Advanced Computing and Intelligent Engineering(pp. 675-685). Springer, Singapore.

Pauget, B. and Dammak, A., 2018. The implementation of the Internet of Things: What impact on organizations?. Technological Forecasting and Social Change.

Clavier, C., & Leeuw, E. J. J. D. (2014). Health promotion and the policy process. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Miller, C. A. (2013). Fast facts for health promotion in nursing: promoting wellness in a nutshell. New York, NY, Springer Pub. Co.

Kemm, J. R. (2014). Health promotion: ideology, discipline, and specialism.

Pandya, R. (2010). Community health education. Jaipur, Rawat Publications.

Naidoo, J., & Wills, J. (2016). Foundations for health promotion. https://nls.ldls.org.uk/welcome.html?ark.

Weaver, C.A., Ball, M.J., Kim, G.R. and Kiel, J.M., 2016. Healthcare information management systems. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Wager, K.A., Lee, F.W. and Glaser, J.P., 2017. Health care information systems: a practical approach for health care management. John Wiley & Sons.

Abdelhak, M., Grostick, S. and Hanken, M.A., 2014. Health Information-E-Book: Management of a Strategic Resource. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Ancker, J.S., Witteman, H.O., Hafeez, B., Provencher, T., Van de Graaf, M. and Wei, E., 2015. The invisible work of personal health information management among people with multiple chronic conditions: qualitative interview study among patients and providers. Journal of medical Internet research, 17(6).

Butcher, H.K., Bulechek, G.M., Dochterman, J.M.M. and Wagner, C., 2018. Nursing Interventions classification (NIC)-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Gutierrez, N., Kindratt, T.B., Pagels, P., Foster, B. and Gimpel, N.E., 2014. Health literacy, health information seeking behaviors and internet use among patients attending a private and public clinic in the same geographic area. Journal of community health, 39(1), pp.83-89.