Health Education Plan For Hispanic Community
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Health Education Plan For Hispanic Community
The Hispanics experience large population growths on an annual basis, and this has contributed to large numbers of youth within their communities. This population explosion is one of the key reasons why access to basic healthcare and sanitation services has been difficult for the Hispanics living in their native land, and overseas. However, initiatives to offer a comprehensive and effective understanding of the health activities of Hispanics are plagued by a range of factors including inadequate information on their lifestyles, insufficient financial resources to conduct as substantial study and constantly changing demographics among the Hispanics (Koskan et al., 2013). Despite these setbacks, there are sufficient statistics that display a grim picture of their health status. While Hispanics exhibit lower age-adjusted mortality rate compared to other races, they also possess destructive and non-beneficial health behaviors that are detrimental to their health (Hull et al., 2008). This includes unhealthy lifestyles, little or no investment in healthcare and poor trust in medical practitioners.
Identification of Specific Health Promotion Need
From the previous study done in the community analysis section on Hispanics, the issue of education and distribution of healthcare providers emerges as a dominant problem. Healthcare providers can be defined as a professional or an organization that offers defensive, therapeutic, promotional, or restorative health care services in a structured way to other people, communities or families. Within the Hispanic community, there is an apparent need for healthcare providers. This need is two ways in that the number of individual and organizational healthcare providers is insufficient when compared to the Hispanic population. As of 2012, about 73% of Hispanics could access a medical center, but of this population, only about 50% were registered with an official healthcare provider of any type (Landale, McHale & booth, 2010 p34). 36% of women and 17% of men also had no healthcare provider (Landale, McHale & booth, 2010). However, Hispanic foreigners displayed a higher awareness and responsibility by taking up a healthcare plan for themselves and their families (30%) (Landale, McHale & booth, 2010). The need for more competent healthcare providers affects all the majority Hispanic regions. Therefore, the Hispanic community is faced with a serious health problem that cannot be solved due to the small number of competent and available healthcare providers. It has been discovered that healthcare providers, especially at the grassroots, are the most effective medical officers in the introduction and implementation of health standards and directives. This problem affects all the age groups within the Hispanic population, as it is a general problem. Healthcare providers offer information and services that are administered to children, youth and the elderly.
In the instruction and distribution of healthcare providers that will disseminate awareness on preventive healthcare, several limitations and challenges may arise. The issue of insufficient funds to implement a recruitment and training exercise successfully may hamper the implementation of the awareness project for the Hispanic people. Even though health is a critical issue, the government and other stakeholders may fail to contribute the financial and administrative resources needed to implement this training exercise. There are also challenges of curriculum development as it is the backbone of the awareness program. The quality of the healthcare providers will depend on the learning content developed for them.
Health Education Outcomes
Exceptional training and education: The healthcare providers should undergo a rigorous and extensive training process that will equip them with all the essential aspects of healthcare. These professionals require training in all the elements that they encounter in the communities such as pregnant women, small injuries and accidents, sanitation and proper disposal of wastes. After this training, it is expected that at least 80% of the healthcare professionals in Hispanic communities should be certified with a diploma.
Competent and capable staff: The training exercise should ensure thatthere are adequate healthcare providers who are highly trained and briefed on their responsibilities and altering needs to make sure that the Hispanic population is cared for by competent staff that are properly initiated, instructed and experienced. To that extent, it is expected that at least each community possess ten healthcare providers who went through the training program.
Recruitment of new healthcare providers: The number of certified providers was one of the caused of poor health service provision in Hispanic communities. Therefore, more officials should be recruited to assist in maintaining higher health standards through all Hispanic communities. After this training, it is expected that at least 2,500 new healthcare providers will have been employed to work with the communities and alleviate their health status.
Health Educational Plan
The following elements will form the main topics in the curriculum used to instruct the healthcare providers:
- Emergency care (first aid), disease outbreak control, disposal of household wastes and dietary choices
The following content was selected based on the following criteria:
Scope of occurrence and impact: The course content was selected as they represented the most common illnesses and conditions that Hispanics in all communities exhibited.
Ease of facilitation and implementation: The course topics were selected, as they were relatively cheap and easy to implement when compared to other areas that were capital intensive. These areas of study were also easy to instruct and impart on the rest of the population.
Emergency Care (First Aid)
The skills learnt will help in reducing instances of people dying or being permanently injured from common accidents such as choking, burns, grazes and faints. First aid also helps in deep tissue trauma.
Disease Outbreak Control
The Hispanic communities are congested and this results in fast spread of communicable diseases such as anthrax, influenza and cholera. These skills will teach the providers on the best ways to reduce and handle such diseases.
Disposal of Household Wastes
The Hispanic communities lack proper infrastructure to allow for proper waste management. The skills learnt in this unit will assist the medical experts to teach on proper waste disposal and management to reduce spread of diseases. These wastes include organic and inorganic materials that are responsible for diseases especially in urban centers for example lung cancer.
Dietary Choices
Hispanics are mostly middle and low-income earners and cannot afford healthy food. Therefore, they are forced to consume junk food that exposes them to several dietary and lifestyle conditions such as obesity and heart attacks. The skills learnt in this unit will allow the healthcare providers to advise the Hispanic population on the healthiest food choices.
Implementation of the Health Education Plan
The implementation of the Health Education Plan will be carried out using several methods depending on the program outcomes, selected content and educational requirements. Classroom lectures will form the largest part of the instruction process. These lectures will comprise of 4-hour talks on all the necessary topics outlined in the curriculum. Since all the healthcare professionals have basic education, al the lectures will be administered in Spanish and English languages. While textbooks and writing material shall be used, there will be frequent use of other teaching aids such as real life models, videos and films, flashcards and other hospital equipment. The next major method of instruction will be role-playing. In this session, the trainees will be paired off and instructed on how to practice some of the skills they learnt in the lectures. This method is particularly necessary for classes such as first aid and dietary choices. Through a combination of these two techniques, it is expected that the training process will be satisfactory and effective. The bulks of the trainees are aged between 22 and 40 and should have absolutely no problem understanding any of the teaching methods.
Evaluation of Educational Effectiveness
The type of evaluation used in this project is the summative evaluation method. This method sought to appraise the learning and included an outline of the instruction period. Using this model, the trainees were requested to fill surveys after the instruction period was complete. This method also entails an appraisal process such as an examination to enable the instructor assign outcomes to the trainees depending on their performance. There were set standards for each of the training outcomes and after the training program was complete and the health providers had been dispatched, these set standards would be assessed to confirm if they were achieved. Increasing the number of certified heath workers is perhaps the most important target that would have to be assessed for completion. Apart from the mentioned services, other services could also contribute to lower risks among Hispanic communities. The abolition of regressive aspects of culture and norms would definitely lower the risk factors. Engaging in unhealthy and risky behavior such as promiscuity and drug abuse acts a high-risk behavior that predisposes Hispanics to many diseases.
References
Hull, P. C., Canedo, J., Aquilera, J., Garcia, E., Lira, I., & Reyes, F. (2008). Assessing community readiness for change in the Nashville Hispanic community through participatory research. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 2, 3, 185-94.
Koskan, A. M., Friedman, D. B., Brandt, H. M., Walsemann, K. M., & Messias, D. K. (2013). Preparing promoters to deliver health programs for Hispanic communities: training processes and curricula. Health Promotion Practice, 14, 3, 390-9.
Landale, N., McHale, S. & Booth, A. (2010). Growing up Hispanic: Health and development of children of immigrants. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.