1 Healthcare Advocacy Plan Healthcare Issues Affecting the Local Community Introduction Local communities, especially those of low-income earners, face several healthcare issues. To address the issues, all stakeholders in healthcare should advocate for accessible and culturally sensitive healthcare for such communities. Everyone deserves the opportunity to lead a healthy life, regardless of their background or circumstances, and it is through grassroots initiatives, collaboration with local healthcare providers, and educational campaigns that awareness can be raised, preventive care can be promoted, and healthcare disparities can be addressed.
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Healthcare Issues Affecting My Local Community Issue 1: Health and Healthcare Disparities. Health disparities refer to the difference in health among groups that arise from social inequalities. CDC (2023) defines it as preventable differences in disease, injury, violence, burden, and opportunity to achieve optimal healthcare faced by disadvantaged populations. CDC asserts that health disparities are caused by poverty, individual and behavioral factors, educational inequalities, and environmental threats. Some of the most glaring health disparities in my community include the higher prevalence of obesity and chronic stress among low-income earners. Obesity is particularly prevalent among African-American women. Low-income earners also tend to have difficulty accessing healthcare insurance.
How to Alleviate Health and Healthcare Disparities. Culturally Competent care: Healthcare providers need to understand and respect the needs of patients from diverse backgrounds. A culturally competent healthcare workforce can be achieved by promoting the recruitment of healthcare workers from diverse backgrounds and offering cultural competency training to healthcare workers. Promoting access to insurance: Enabling socially disadvantaged community members to access health insurance is one of the most effective ways to alleviate health and healthcare disparities (Artiga et al., 2020). The objective can be achieved by lowering requirements for eligibility to programs like Medicaid.
3 Addressing social determinants: Health and healthcare disparities are caused by social inequalities, and this means that addressing the inequalities can alleviate the problem. Policymakers, grassroots movements, and community-based movements should advocate for policies that make it easier for members of all social groups to have access to healthy food, quality education, etc. Ethical Advocacy Approach Addressing health and healthcare inequality should start by acknowledging that systematic biases exist in healthcare. The changes being advocated for should focus on these biases. The affected groups should be involved in every step of the advocacy process to ensure that the changes are fair and just for everyone, irrespective of age, gender, religious beliefs, etc. Issue 2: Mental Health Stigma. Mental health stigma occurs when a person is viewed negatively because of their mental illness. According to American Psychiatric Association (n.d), about half of individuals with mental health issues do not receive any help, and this is primarily due to stigma. Many of them avoid or delay seeking help because they fear losing their livelihood. APA avers that mental health stigma, whether subtle or obvious, can cause serious harm. How to Alleviate Mental Health Stigma. Raising awareness: Mental health stigma persists due to a lack of awareness. Many people do not fully understand mental health and its impacts. Educational institutions, local media, and community centers can help in raising mental health awareness.
4 Integrating mental health into primary healthcare: Integrating mental health into primary healthcare will enhance accessibility and early intervention. It would also enable collaboration between primary care providers and mental health professionals. Ethical Advocacy Approach Mental health advocacy should focus on promoting understanding, empathy, and acceptance. Issues like accessibility, affordability, and cultural sensitivity must also not be left out during advocacy. To ensure that the policies and services address the specific needs of the community, there should be a collaboration between mental health organizations, community leaders, and individuals with lived experience. Issue 3: Health Literacy and Patient Empowerment. According to CDC (2023), health literacy is the extent to which an individual or an organization can find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related actions and decisions for themselves and others. How to Alleviate Low Health Literacy Health Literacy Programs: Health literacy programs can equip communities with knowledge and skills which can enable them to effectively understand and navigate healthcare information. Such programs can be organized by community organizations, educational institutions, and healthcare providers. Promoting Accessibility to Healthcare Information: Advocacy groups should advocate for the creation and dissemination of healthcare information in multiple languages and availing them in multiple communication channels. Government agencies, community organizations, and non-government organizations should be key players in such programs. Low
5 health literacy can lead to the use of unapproved medical interventions, delayed seeking of medical intervention, contraction of more diseases, and a higher likelihood of death (Nutbeam, 2021). Ethical Advocacy Approach. Advocating for health literacy should focus on promoting equity, patient autonomy, and empowerment. It would also be important to study factors contributing to the rejection of medical facts and how to handle patients who believe in some myths or misinformation about some healthcare procedures during the advocacy process. Conclusion. Addressing healthcare issues in local communities requires a comprehensive and ethical advocacy approach. By empowering communities through accessible and culturally sensitive healthcare services and information, health equity and improved well-being can be achieved for everyone. Stakeholders should also strive to create a culture that treats healthcare as a right and not a privilege to ensure that everyone is involved in the advocacy. When everyone is advocating for change, policymakers will treat the issue with the urgency it deserves.
References American Psychiatric Association. (n.d.)Stigma, prejudice, and discrimination against people with mental illness. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/stigma-anddiscrimination
6 Artiga, S., Orgera, K., & Pham, O. (2020). Disparities in health and health care: Five key questions and answers. Kaiser Family Foundation. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023a, March 31). What is health literacy? Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy/learn/index.html Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023, May 26). Health disparities. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/disparities/index.htm Nutbeam, D., & Lloyd, J. E. (2021). Understanding and responding to health literacy as a social determinant of health. Annu Rev Public Health, 42(1), 159-73.
