Key Aspects of a Population-Based Health Concern
Write a 6-8-page evaluation of key aspects of a population-based health concern, including your selection of members to form an interprofessional, collaborative coalition to achieve the stated goal.
Resolving population health concerns requires the combined efforts of numerous agencies and individuals to address the Triple Aim of improving the patient experience, improving the health of populations, and reducing costs. This requires an interprofessional and collaborative effort to address the complex factors at the individual, organizational, community, and policy levels associated with the multiple factors affecting the health and well-being of our communities (Graffunder, Sakurada, & Nordisk, 2016).
As a scholar-practitioner in the field, you may be expected to develop and lead a diverse team of health care professionals, civic leaders, community stakeholders, constituents, community members, other interested parties, and city, state, and government agencies in addressing a wide range of issues affecting the health of diverse groups.
This assessment provides an opportunity for you to apply your leadership skills to form a collaborative, interprofessional coalition to address a population-based health concern from a nursing, public health, or health administration perspective.
Sample Paper
Interprofessional Collaboration
The US healthcare system is affected by various challenges, including chronic disease. Americans are facing an increased prevalence of chronic diseases among all age groups. Besides, the costs associated with chronic diseases in the US are immense. According to Yusefzadeh et al. (2019), the economic burden of chronic diseases is expected to worsen in the future as they become more prevalent. Some of the primary chronic health conditions affecting Americans include obesity. This chronic disease is associated with the accumulation of excessive fats in the body. A person with a BMI of 30.0 and above is considered obese. According to 2017-2018 data, the US obesity prevalence was 42.4 per cent. This shows a significant increase from 30.4 per cent prevalence reported in 1999-2000 (CDC, 2018). The essay aims at evaluating vital aspects of the population affected by obesity.
Factors contributing to this chronic population health concern
Obesity affects people across all ages and races/ethnicity. However, obesity affects some groups more than others..African Americans have the highest prevalence (49.6%) compared others race/ethnic groups, which include Hispanic adults (44.8%) White adults (42.2%) and non-Hispanic Asian adults (17.4%) (CDC, 2018).
Various environmental, social, and financial factors contribute to obesity. One of the environmental risk factors contributing to this chronic health condition includes poor environmental or community settings that discourage physical activity. Most people with this disease tend to be physically inactive or lead a sedentary lifestyle (CDC, 2018). People living in areas with poor environmental quality which limit physical activity have a high prevalence of obesity. For instance, lack of sidewalks or safe bike trails, hinders people from engaging in physical activities such as walking and cycling.
Also, obesity can be caused by various social factors. One of them includes family history. Obesity tends to run in families. This can be caused by the family genes. Besides, this can occur since family members also tend to share similar eating and activity habits, which increase the risk of getting the health cindition (CDC, 2018). Secondly, obesity is more prevalent in particular races/ethnic groups than others. For instance, obesity is morre prevalent among African Americans and Hispanic/Latino Americans compared to the white population (CDC, 2018).
Besides, obesity is associated with various financial factors. Obesity is more prevalent in poor communities than their middle or high-income counterparts. Being born in a low-income family may imply worse health in life. As a result, individuals from low-income families are more likely to be affected by various chronic health conditions, including obesity, than their richer peers. Low-income communities are characterized by unhealthy behaviors, limited access to quality care, and obesity (Hills et al., 2018).
Interprofessional collaboration
Interprofessional collaboration is one of the approaches that will be applied to address this chronic population health concern. In this case, the interprofessional coalition comprises various key community members, clinical providers, local and state agencies. One of them includes a social worker. This healthcare professional will help patients and families understand the illness, accept the diagnosis, and collaborate with other healthcare providers such as nurse educators to provide health education regarding the chronic health issue. The second team member will include a family physician. This healthcare professional is an expert in diagnosing and managing most acute and chronic illnesses. Thus, the role of a family physician in this team will include providing comprehensive care to obese patients. The third team member will be a nurse. Some of their roles will promote the patients’ self-care skills to help them manage obesity-related diseases such as diabetes. Also, dieticians will be involved in the interprofessional coalition to assess and meet the patient’s nutritional needs. Healthy eating is one of the ways to prevent obesity. In addition, the interprofessional team will comprise agents or representatives from American Obesity Association (AOA) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These organizations will provide vital research and information for professionals in the team that they utilize to develop treatment and education programs.
Various challenges may arise affecting interprofessional collaboration. One of them includes inadequate interprofessional education and training among the team members. Lack of effective collaboration skills among team members may lead to poor communication and conflicts (Wei et al., 2020). Also, inadequate communication mechanisms and technology might limit interprofessional collaboration. In addition, role and leadership ambiguity might serve as a barrier to effective teamwork (Wei et al., 2020).
These barriers will be addressed using various strategies to enhance interprofessional collaboration. For instance, regular interprofessional teaching programs will be conducted to equip the team members with the necessary skills to participate actively in the interprofessional team (Wei et al., 2020). Secondly, information technology will be applied to help promote communication in interprofessional teams. They will include the use of telehealth. This technology will allow team players to conveniently communicate with patients from diverse geographical locations (Wei et al., 2020). Lastly, ineffective communication can lead to role and leadership ambiguity. Therefore, this issue will be addressed by ensuring each team member receives sufficient information regarding the priorities related to their roles and responsibilities and clear definitions of tasks (Wei et al., 2020).
Ethical issues
Various ethical issues may arise during the interprofessional practice that may affect its mission. One of them includes discrimination and biasness during the distribution of resources among team members or providing care to patients. This ethical issue may limit collaboration. This issue can be experienced at the meso level. For instance, healthcare organizations utilize interprofessional approaches to provide care. This encourages the collaboration of healthcare professionals from diverse cultural backgrounds and professions. The second issue will include privacy and confidentiality. This will affect the quality of care offered to patients with type 2 diabetes. The interprofessional team will transfer various patient information using multiple strategies, including information technology. Ineffective use of this technology will affect the privacy and confidentiality of the information shared. This issue would apply in specific situations on a micro-level. Healthcare professionals have the responsibility to protect patient confidentiality when providing care.
Code of ethics
Code of ethics helps professions in various fields of practice identify appropriate and acceptable behaviors when executing their roles. They include privacy and integrity. This code of ethics applies to this type of interprofessional collaboration. This team comprises medical professionals who will collect and share patient information to come up with informed decisions to help improve the overall wellbeing of T2D patients (Haddad et al., 2018). In this case, the healthcare professionals or team members will be required to ensure they maintain the privacy of the patient’s health records, including seeking their permission before sharing. Secondly, in this coalition, the team members are expected to maintain honesty and trust between themselves and their patients.
Principles of diversity and inclusion
Bringing people from diverse backgrounds, viewpoints, and life experiences will impact the coalition in various ways. First, the embracement of diversity in the team will help increase creativity and innovation. The coalition members will present different views regarding addressing the chronic population health concern (Wong et al., 2018). This will help the team develop new and innovative ideas that will enhance its ability to achieve the common objective. Secondly, diversity will help improve the coalition’s problem-solving and decision-making abilities. Each team will bring diverse remedies regarding the issue, which will lead to a more informed decision-making process and improved outcomes.
Establishing a culture of inclusion respect and value
The culture of inclusion, respect, and value in the coalition can be improved using diverse approaches. One of them includes the development of a strategic training program. This will help the team members recognize their cultural differences and impact their work. The second approach includes establishing rules and guidelines of the coalition that encourage diversity and teamwork, like discouraging discrimination in the team. Acknowledging each team members’ cultural practices, including cultural holidays. This will make the team members feel valued and recognized.
Promoting community engagement, cultural awareness, health equity, and access to resources
One of the approaches that can be utilized to enhance community engagement includes providing feedback to community members and giving them room to express themselves. Also, cultural awareness can be improved by organizing cultural competence training programs. This training activity will increase one’s understanding of each team member’s cultural values and practices. Lastly, access to resources can be promoted by establishing organizational policies discouraging discrimination in resource allocation.
Interprofessional communication
Interprofessional communication can be improved using various best practices. Some of them include the use of active listening. This involves giving another team member full attention and engaging meaningfully in the conversation ((D’Alimonte et al., 2019). Another approach is showing empathy when communicating with the team members. This allows one to understand the other person‘s feelings and perspectives (D’Alimonte et al., 2019). Also, provision and receiving of feedback is crucial in interprofessional communication.
Literature and Research
Kelly et al. (2020) organized a systematic review to examine the evidence from various sources regarding the effectiveness of diet in managing obesity and other obesity-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes. The study findings revealed that the implementation of vegetarian and Mediterranean dietary patterns could help patients with type 2 diabetes achieve better glycemic control. Besides, Balducci et al. (2019) support that regular physical activity can help enhance the management of T2D. Therefore, the researcher organized a randomized clinical trial (RCT) to investigate how to improve physical activity among T2D patients. Thus, the study revealed that implementation of behavioral intervention strategy helps increase physical activity compared to standard care.
References
Center for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC)(2018). Health, United States-2018. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus18.pdf
D’Alimonte, L., McLaney, E., & Di Prospero, L. (2019). Best practices on team communication: interprofessional practice in oncology. Current opinion in supportive and palliative care, 13(1), 69-74. https://journals.lww.com/co-supportiveandpalliativecare/Fulltext/2019/03000/Best_practices_on_team_communication_.14.aspx
Haddad, L. M., & Geiger, R. A. (2018). Nursing ethical considerations. https://europepmc.org/article/nbk/nbk526054
Hills, A. P., Arena, R., Khunti, K., Yajnik, C. S., Jayawardena, R., Henry, C. J., … & Misra, A. (2018). Epidemiology and determinants of type 2 diabetes in south Asia. The lancet Diabetes & endocrinology, 6(12), 966-978. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(18)30204-3
Kelly, T., Unwin, D., & Finucane, F. (2020). Low-Carbohydrate diets in the management of obesity and type 2 diabetes: a review from clinicians using the approach in practice. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(7), 2557. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072557
Martin, A., Booth, J. N., Laird, Y., Sproule, J., Reilly, J. J., & Saunders, D. H. (2018). Physical activity, diet and other behavioural interventions for improving cognition and school
