Healthy People 2020 Initiatives, Essay Example

Selection of interest topic from the Healthy People 2020 Initiatives.

My interest topic is type two diabetes mellitus. Healthy people 2020 initiative objective for this topic clearly relates to removing disparities among groups most affected and providing more access in education as well as treatment. Center of Disease Control (CDC) has linked type11 diabetes to obesity. Consequently, when the complications of diabetes meet with obesity resolving both individually and collectively becomes more complicated. The major goal is not just reducing the prevalence of type 11 diabetes mellitus, but mainly reducing new cases (Wright, 2012).

A public service education plan for my community.

My plan has to objectives. First narrowing disparities among people affected by type 11 diabetes and ensuring that trend of new cases are greatly reduced. In narrowing disparities among people already affected with diabetes type 11 is engaging in a massive education program whereby these pateints have access to the resources that will control their blood sugar levels irrespective of whether they have the necessary health insurance coverage or not.  Research has shown where African Americans and Hispanics are the minorities mostly affected by type 11 diabetes (Sondik, 2012).

This is so because they are uninsured and those who have some Medicaid/ Medicare many beneficial services are considered not necessary as cost reduction is the goal of managed care protocols within the country health care systems.. As such, they do not have access to enough quality health care. By opening the doors to providing free distribution of blood sugar testing devices to low income diabetics could be very effective. Also, with free training on accurate blood sugar testing and insulin administration where necessary these measures can close many disparities, which now exist within the society of diabetics across the nation.

My second objective would entail nutrition education for people screened and perceived as being prediabetes. Again this vulnerable group might be among minorities with no insurance. Often they do not have a primary care physician who can refer them to a nutritionist for counseling. If they do have insurance it might not be covered in their specific plan. Therefore, free nutrition counseling/education and follow-up is essential to reducing the among of new cases. If public health through adequate health promotion ventures can guide the population away from unhealthy foods/ life styles predisposing to obesity and diabetes; incidence records could be broken.

Need for this health promotion education in thetargeted population, and instruction methods & materials to be used

My target groups are African Americans and Hispanics who are already been diagnosed with type 11 diabetes and prediabetes. According to the Centers for Disease Control African Americans are 70 % more likely to develop diabetes than non-Hispanic whites. Besides, they are considered minorities. Hispanics have also have had a very high incidence of type two diabetes with very little access to quality health care. This is another segment of the growing minority within the country.

For Hispanics instruction methods have to be in Spanish. As such the program must be bilingual in nature. While it may be culturally relevant to merge both Hispanics and African American groups during the teaching sessions some classes would be conducted separately since African Americans as well as Hispanics may not be altogether comfortable in sharing their concerns with other cultures in the room. Materials would include charts, pamphlets, bilingual videos and bilingual facilitators (National Diabetes Education Program, 2014).

References

National Diabetes Education Program (2014).The Facts about Diabetes: A Leading Cause of Death in the U.S. Retrieved May 28^th, 2014 from http://www.ndep.nih.gov/diabetes-facts/

Sondik, E. (2012). Healthy People: From a Data Perspective.National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Wright, D. (2012). Healthy People 2010 Progress Report and Healthy People 2020 Objectives: Meeting of the Diabetes Mellitus Interagency Coordinating Committee.Pdf