- Published: January 18, 2022
- Updated: January 18, 2022
- University / College: McMaster University
- Level: Undergraduate
- Language: English
- Downloads: 48
Public health interventions at policy
1. Physical, social and behavioral interventions serve to improve public health of a people. Social interventions including policies and programs as well as physical interventions like specific projects and actions including behavioral interventions that seek to change behavior patterns of a community impact positively on the public health. However, such interventions need to be evidence-based to ensure their reliability. The interaction of the physical, social and behavioral interventions ensure the efforts are comprehensive addressing the public health issues in totality (Heath, Parra, Sarmiento, Andersen, Owen, Goenka, & Lancet Physical Activity Series Working Group, 2012).
2. Public health interventions at policy levels are majorly concerned with regulations and resource allocations through formulation of evidence-based plans of actions which are continuously assessed and implemented through qualitative and quantitative evidence. Public health interventions at community levels however involve implementing the formulated policies or plans of actions through carrying out the activities provided for in the policies (Jacobs, Jones, Gabella, Spring, & Brownson, 2012). At the organizational level, they are the executing/implementing agency of the public health interventions. Monitoring and evaluation is done both at organization and international levels. Additionally, they inform policy making processes as part of the stakeholders through partnerships. At international levels, research and policy formulation as well as advocacy is a major activity carried out in relation to public health interventions.
3. Bartholomew, Parcel, Kok, & Gottlieb, (2011), discuses: Design process applied to health promotion should be clear and systematic to enable understanding of the health conditions, causes and solutions. It should include what needs to be done, where, who needs to change and the specific changes that need to occur. Also of importance is the involvement of the local communities in the design process. Planning of a health promotion on the other end should involve setting out the goals, what is needed to reach the set out goals, the implementers and how the health promotion will be evaluated. Implementation process as well needs to have the community involved and continuous assessment of the activities to ensure they achieve the set out goals. Evaluations applied to health promotions involves undertaking systematic reviews targeting effectiveness of the social, physical and health interventions in addition to evaluating the health policies, health impacts among other specific interventions. Moreover, the evaluation carried out should be based on evidence and thus distinguish between its own fidelity to failure and the failure of the intervention itself.
4. Qualitative assessment will gather information aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the interventions and thus can inform theory as well as practice and situations. As such, qualitative assessment allows identification of new ways intervention and enables deeper understanding of the issues. Quantitative assessment on the other end focuses much on describing the issues and thus we can generalize the feedback on the entire intervention. It allows for comparison across different areas of intervention and can therefore be used to inform decision making or policy formulation (Ulin, Robinson, & Tolley, 2012).
5. Education theory can be applied in health promotion through its predictive and explanatory capabilities that are vital in program designs and evaluation. Evidence based practice, due to its multidimensional nature enables combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the public health interventions and inform decision making in relation to policies, programs and activities (Jacobs, Jones, Gabella, Spring, & Brownson, 2012).
Reference
Jacobs, J. A., Jones, E., Gabella, B. A., Spring, B., & Brownson, R. C. (2012). Peer Reviewed: Tools for Implementing an Evidence-Based Approach in Public Health Practice. Preventing chronic disease, 9.
Ulin, P. R., Robinson, E. T., & Tolley, E. E. (2012). Qualitative methods in public health: a field guide for applied research. John Wiley & Sons.
Bartholomew, L. K., Parcel, G. S., Kok, G., & Gottlieb, N. H. (2011). Planning health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Heath, G. W., Parra, D. C., Sarmiento, O. L., Andersen, L. B., Owen, N., Goenka, S., … & Lancet Physical Activity Series Working Group. (2012). Evidence-based intervention in physical activity: lessons from around the world. The lancet, 380(9838), 272-281.