Health promotion

Effects of socioeconomic influences

Health is one such factor that gets affected by all other operational factors of an environment. When a person is free from all sorts of diseases and relieved both physically and mentally, then he is said to be a healthy person. It is important for every society, community and nation to develop health promotion strategies for creating a healthy atmosphere for sustaining lives (Hiscock and et. al., 2012). The dominance of socioeconomic influences on health can be depicted concerning Jack and Deborah's health. They both are active drinkers and smokers. This habit is not socially acceptable in any society. The couple does not have any income source for meeting their daily needs. Complete dependence of the family is on social benefits.

Lifestyle is the primary factor for deciding health status of a person. Jack and Deborah both lead a very unhealthy lifestyle. Despite their poor living conditions they are not getting rid of alcohol and smoking. This creates adverse effects on children. Such bad environment at home creates a negative effect on young minds. Their tendency to indulge in unhealthy practices will increase. Unemployment is a factor that forces an individual to adopt wrong activities for escaping from realities (Bartley and Blane, 2015). Deborah doesn't have a job which has made her an irresponsible towards her health. From cultural beliefs of Jack, it is visible that family is orthodox and deprived of quality eduction. This also indicates that future health issues of children cannot be correctly handled.

Socio-economic influences are having the inimical influence on Jack and Deborah's health. If they continue to live with such conditions they will have less financial benefits for accessing good health care facilities and can also face discrimination in the community.

Relevance of government resources

Two major government resources that reported inequalities in health were Black Report, 1980 and Acheson Report, 1998. They were formulated so that health policies and reforms could be modified according to inequality status of health in the UK. Health inequalities exist due to the difference in income levels of individuals (Tackling Health Inequalities in the UK, 2010). Three major sections of society are lower income, middle income and higher income groups. Accessibility for health and social care services differ for all of them. Following reports were initialised for bridging this gap of inequality in health status.

Black Report, 1980

This document was formulated by Department of Health and Social Security for detecting and investigating health inequalities. It was found that economic contrasts within the nation were a major issue for health inequalities. It also described the variations in mortality rates of different financially segregated classes. Jack and Deborah's classical situation defines this health discrimination. Their no source of income led to inaccessibility of major health facilities in the country.

Acheson Report, 1998

People faced a lot of discrimination and oppression during the 1990s while accessing health care services. NHS was functioning, but services were not efficiently delivered. According to Acheson Report also referred as Acheson Inquiry, UK was finding it difficult for tackling health care inequalities. Various policies were separately implemented for different sections of society (Exworthy and Oliver, 2012). This investigation helped in dealing with these discriminatory problems and measured the relevant areas where improvements can be made. Feasibility and reliability of this resource are much more when compared to the Black report.

Barriers to accessing health care

Below mentioned are barriers that occur when Jack and Deborah will access health care:

Lack of financial resources

There are very few services regarding health and social care that are given free of costs. Some ailments require large capital or financial resources so that proper treatment can be accessed (Gulliford and Morgan, 2013). Since Deborah was unemployed and Jack already lived in a day care centre, they were deprived of maximum health care facilities. Lower income groups automatically get exempted from high priced health care facilities (Loewenstein and et. al., 2012).

Cultural and linguistic blockades

Different regions have variable first language or mother tongue. Jack's family was a refugee. His belief in no care for family planning and no concentration over health care facilities depicts a diversion from the traditional culture of UK. The National language of the country is English. To acquire such social care services Jack and family have to first get their hands on regional language or seek help from a linguistic specialist.

Connections between government strategies and health promotion models

Beattie model of health promotion is shown below (The Beattie Model applied: Obesity, 2013):

There are four quadrants according to the model. These are scaled on a spectrum that varies from individual to collective horizontally and negotiated to authoritative vertically. Jack and Deborah are suffering from obesity and various other ailments. Their connection with health and social care facilities that are devised by a government can be measured and analysed using this model.

Legislative Action

Policies and reforms are highly essential when health and social care is concerned. People who are weak, unstable and tinder for changes in their environment are vulnerable groups. These face exploitation, harassment and all sorts of abuse if proper safeguarding is not done. Hence, legalisation and judicial decisions are required favouring all such sensitive people. It is the duty of UK government to safeguard Jack and his family by providing good social care facilities (Grol and et. al., 2013). The are refugees so require special attention. Healthy Life Healthy People 2010 was an Act that was strategically implemented to achieve proper health targets.

Community Development

Communities and societies have the responsibility of spreading awareness regarding good food habits, protection steps and measures that are essential for defending oneself. With such collective education, Jack and Deborah won't feel neglected from health care perspective.

Health Persuasion

Motivating people for attending sessions and seminars that impart health education. These will help in pursuing healthy lifestyle at the individual level. Fitness for Work is one such legislation that focuses on health persuasion strategies for unhealthy people.

Health Counselling

Jack and his family can be guided and counselled by local care groups or even at day centre or council where they stay. This will help them make better choices regarding lifestyle. If mental and physical health is improved then they can work efficiently for finding employment opportunities so that income crisis do not prevail for a long time (Eijkenaar and et. al., 2013).

There are various other models that can be used for promoting health care standards in a community and nation with the help of government policies and campaigns like Smoking Health Harm campaign, Change4Life, etc.

Roles of health and social care professionals

Professionals and medical practitioners that are involved in giving health and social care services to individuals are doctors, nurses, health visitors, advisers, counsellors, dieticians, nutritionists, etc. Jack and Deborah have to interact majorly with nurses, doctors and counsellors so that they can overcome their problems quickly. The effective functioning of these health care professionals is maintained by the government of UK (Kitson and et. al., 2013). They have to meet fixed targets and goals which are set by the organisation so that health is promoted amongst all human beings with proper standards and effectiveness. The quality of care is maintained only when these people perform their respective defined roles in a disciplined manner.

• Certain rewards and incentives are distributed annually to health care practitioners irrespective of their mode of working. This creates a healthy competition for serving the best service possible.
• Surveys and census are conducted for getting reports on some increase or decrease of patients in a particular ailment. This amount becomes a target for caregivers to serve best and spread maximum awareness amongst people who are on their network.
• Ethical practices are adopted for taking care of physically, mentally or emotionally challenged individuals (Delphin-Rittmon and et. al., 2013). The role of every medical professional is just not limited to serving and treating people but also to take care that no corrupt practices are performed.
• Reduction in alcohol intake, smoking and obesity, deaths due to cancer and stroke are some more targets for these practitioners so that health care status at the national level is improved (Berenson, Pronovost and Krumholz, 2013).

Routines in advocating healthy lifestyle

Jack and Deborah's health status portrays that they don't follow routines or regimes and are highly careless regarding health situation of their family. Health regimes include personal and general hygiene, diet consciousness, relaxations, exercises, workout practices, etc. If these are followed with discipline and integrity, no disease can easily be procured by any individual. Large scale demolition of diseases takes place when a person starts exercising regularly.

Routines are an organisation of day to day activities that a person does for meeting his needs and requirements. This framework is one and only step towards a healthy lifestyle. When an individual is mentally healthy, he/she can focus in a better way. Same old tasks can be creatively done when soul, mind and body are in rhythm. Deborah must adopt routines where recreational activity has some space so that she can find other ways of employment and earn a living for her family. If children are educated and bought up in a strict and healthy routine, they won't face such serious ailments in future just like their parents. Following gestures have to be involved in a healthy lifestyle routine:

• Regular bedtime and wake time schedules for sound sleep.
• Meals must be controlled and regulated with guidelines from a dietician.
• Exercise regimes or yoga can be inculcated in fitness routine so that replenishment of body is achieved.
• The type of routine a person will fit depends on his/ her habits. Hence, Jack and Deborah must understand their own habits and resources for making a routine that will help them upgrade their unhealthy lifestyle to a healthy one.

Health behaviour

Health behaviour theories are used to evaluate and monitor changes that can occur in behaviour or attitudes of a person due to health conditions (Hayden, 2013). Individual's actions are a product of thoughts that are processed in mind. Stages of Change model or transtheoretical model is used for observing this changing motion of thoughts to behaviour. Jack and Deborah's case can be considered in this analytical model.

For getting a deeper insight of this model, Jack's cultural belief can be taken into consideration. He thinks that family planning is not essential and should not be performed. As a result, he came up with six children and no source of income at present. This means lives of those innocent children is at stake due to such an irresponsible, and unhealthy decision was taken by Jack. The translation of this thought is divided into five stages according to Stages of Change model (Prochaska, 2013).

According to the above-depicted stages, Jack did not find a chance to relapse. He struck to his thought with full determination and took necessary actions. His carelessness resulted in unplanned kids. If thoughts processing would have been analysed or nourished with proper education and exposure, then he would not have let his condition worsen. This stage of change model can be usefully implemented at any level for promoting better health care behaviours to different individuals (Loef and Walach, 2012).

Conflicts with local industry and their impact

Health promotion is a subject that involves large-scale controversies. Current age is witnessing increasing levels of smokers and drinkers. Despite being extremely poor, people are engaging themselves in such harmful activities. This calls for an alarming reform to improve and promote healthy lifestyles irrespective of class of society. But during such promotional campaigns, conflicts can arise with local industries.

Firms that manufacture cigarettes and produce alcohol face criticism for creating such hazardous things. Jack and Deborah are also active smokers and alcoholics. According to statistics, about 8 billion pounds are paid to cigarette and tobacco industries. Non-profit organisations are involved in promoting sessions where these industries can be prohibited from selling their products (Naidoo, 2016). Conflicts give rise to corruption because industries are a source of income for a huge number of employees. They take back support of government by giving bribes and continuing unethical practises which is not in favour of health promotion.

Importance of spreading awareness

Awareness is the basic necessity of a healthy environment. Education levels may or may not be same for all individuals. If information regarding precautionary measures is spread amongst all people residing in a community then, counterfeiting consequences will be easier. Health promotion is necessary to control mortality rates, sex ratio, deadly diseases and their side effects (Edelman, Mandle and Kudzma, 2013). For example, smoking is a really bad and dangerous habit. Increasing tendency of smoking in young adults and children is a great matter of concern. Development centres and campaigns by health care professionals for spreading information regarding ill effects of smoking will decrease the rate of consumption of cigarette and tobacco.

Jack and Deborah must also be given proper education and awareness training regarding their own condition. This will help them gather courage and motivation to fight their circumstances and emerge as better individuals. Moreover, their children will not get indulged in unhealthy habits if they are given proper information regarding ill effects of unhealthy lifestyle (Abdelhak, Grostick and Hanken, 2014).

Conclusion

Evolution of perspectives regarding health and social care has taken place at a wider scale in the UK within past few decades. Every individual's life and health status get influenced by socio-economic factors. This influence depends on different factors that constitute the living environment of a person. All such factors and inequality problems have been discussed in above report with a case of Jack and Deborah. Their health care condition is a classic scenario that helped in understanding the need of routines with the brief about roles of professionals that are involved in delivering such services. Lastly, health behaviour and impact of conflicts with industries is described. It helps us gaining information about the importance of awareness in health care amongst the public. All above factors together promote healthcare for a better lifestyle.

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• Health and Well-Being of Aboriginals

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