Cardiovascular Disease Prevention In Indigenous Australian Males Example Paper

Overview Of Cardiovascular Disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the leading chronic diseases in Australia that has a high morbidity rate. Cardiovascular Disease is a general term that is used to refer to a wide range of diseases affecting the heart and the blood vessels at large. The term is often used to describe coronary heart disease such as angina, stroke as well as heart attack. There are several risk factors that enhance the morbidity rate caused by cardiovascular diseases to increase exponentially among Indigenous Australians. Cardiovascular disease is mainly caused by the buildup of plaques in the heart and the blood vessels.  Coronary heart disease (CHD)  is brought by the lack or inadequate supply of blood and oxygen to the heart muscle which is as a result of blockage or narrowing of blood vessels due to the buildup of atherosclerotic plaques,  (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2015). There are several risk factors that affect the Indigenous Australia population and the main factors are smoking and obesity. The other risk factors contributing to the increase in cardiovascular disease include increasing age, depression, high cholesterol and a family history of coronary heart disease.  Cardiovascular Disease Prevention In Indigenous Australian Males Example Paper

Health promotion is among the crucial elements of public health and plays an important role in protecting and improving the health of the people and quality of life, (Fleming and Parker, 2015). This is mainly achieved by providing public health education which prevents a lot of diseases threatening the public. This health promotion project focuses on encouraging a healthy lifestyle among the Australian Indigenous Male Population so as to reduce the prevalence of the cardiovascular disease. The health promotion also outlines the specific target group, the importance of the promotion, health evaluation among many more concepts such as stakeholder involvement. The population should be sensitized about observing healthy lifestyles since this is a way of reducing the risk factors for cardiovascular disease

The Indigenous Australian males that are aged more than 70 years is the main target group in the health promotion. This group has been targeted in the promotion because they have the highest rate of cardiovascular morbidity in Australia. Although the cardiovascular disease is among the highest causes of death among the indigenous Australian population data shows that the disease has a higher toll on the male compared to the females. Statistics show that 17% and 13% of years of life lost in males and females respectively and indigenous Australians have two times higher prevalence of CVD as compare to the non-Indigenous Australians AIHW, 2014). Also, it is said that the rate of these deaths in males is twice higher than the rate in females in Australia (ABS, 2015). Increase in age is one of the risk factors that increase the chances of cardiovascular disease, therefore, the prevalence of the disease is high among people aged over seventy years. Therefore, the health promotion project is going to concentrate on Indigenous Australian males aged over seventy years since they are more likely to suffer from CVD if they do not check their lifestyle.

Risk Factors Affecting Indigenous Australian Male Population

Health promotion is important in any country since it improves the quality of life of the public. Health promotion helps people to improve and inspire for optimum health and backing them to adjust lifestyle behaviors through public awareness and health education. Health promotion is an essential element of public health that helps the target group to improve their well-being and live a healthy lifestyle that will increase their life expectancy considerably, (Fleming and Parker, 2015). Health promotion is also important to the public since it promotes the creation of a healthy living environment for the public. For instance, discouraging smoking will create a clean environment for both the smokers and non-smokers as well.

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This public health promotion is important to the target group since it focuses on individual behaviors as well as social environmental factors. This will help in the management and prevention of CVD by formulating and implementing the appropriate policies, monitoring health conditions and supporting individuals to make healthy choices, (Snelling, 2014). This is achieved by providing sufficient health education on CVD and how the target group can reduce the risk factors contributing to this chronic disease. This health promotion also facilitates early identification of the risk factors through assessment and treatment, (Ashen, 2010). Smoking is among the risk factors that can be modified and it also among the chief cause of death of CVD among Indigenous males in Australia. Statistics show that in the year 2015, smoking was responsible for nine percent of the deaths related to cardiovascular disease, (AIHW, 2016). Therefore the promotion is going to encourage the target group to lead a healthy lifestyle by reducing the modifiable risk factors such as smoking.

It is important to set goals for any health project since this helps in minimizing the health risks and promoting better outcomes from the project. The goals s of the health project plan should be clear, realistic, precise, considerable and time-bound so as to enable continuous evaluation of the progress of the health project. The goal of this health campaign is to reduce the risk factors and promote a healthy lifestyle among the target group. There are some factors such as  family history and age that cannot be minimized but the other risk factors which are lifestyle related such as diabetes, smoking cigarettes, alcohol consumption and level of physical activity can be reduced by encouraging healthy lifestyles, (Lemone, Burke, Bauldoff, Gubrud,, Levett, and Reid-Searl, 2017). This health promotion project aims at decreasing the smoking and consuming junk foods by at least sixty percent within a year. The health promotion also aims at sensitizing the target group on the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle by avoiding the controllable risk factors such as smoking, alcohol, and obesity among many more. By achieving its goals and aims the mortality rate due to CVD will reduce generally in the country and the quality of life would have been improved.

According to Snelling, 2004, health prevention is the process of managing people’s health and preventing the public from developing chronic diseases or illness. The public will be more involved in improving their own health is they are well educated about prevention activities through such health promotion. There are three levels of prevention namely primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention. Primary prevention intends to decrease the prevalence and thwart incidence of poor health by intervening the problem onset (Ashen, 2010). Unlike primary prevention, secondary prevention concentrates on detection and intervention of the disease at early stages so that it does not symptoms and side effects do not occur, (McMurray and Clendon, 2014). Tertiary level of prevention on the other side intends to reduce the complications and side effects through providing support and enhancing self-management for those who have been affected by the disease. Secondary and tertiary levels of prevention are very costly and mainly occur in health facilities such as the hospitals.

Importance Of Health Promotion

In order to avoid the secondary and the tertiary level of prevention, this health promotion project is involved in the primary level of prevention that prevents the occurrence of a chronic condition of the CVD. This health promotion project can be classified as the primary level of prevention because its main aim is to prevent the occurrence and reduce the frequency of cardiovascular disease. It is mainly going to achieve this primary prevention by enhancing a supportive healthy environment and promoting health education on healthy lifestyle among the target group and the public.

The health promotion project is a community-based program, therefore, stakeholder consultation is important to make the community that they are part of the project. Consulting and involving stakeholders in any project promotes the process of translating research evidence into practice and policy.  The stakeholders in any project refer to all groups, individuals, government agencies, organizations and any other party that has interest on the process and outcomes of the project, (Owusu-Addo, Edusah, and  Sarfo-Mensah, 2015). The beneficiaries of this health promotion project are the primary stakeholders of the project while all the parties with the power to influence the program such as the government department are referred to as the key stakeholders of the project. All the parties that have the intermediate interest in the project are referred to as the tertiary stakeholders. It is important to consult with all of these stakeholders since they have an impact on the formulation and implementation of the project. The indigenous community is the primary stakeholders and they should be consulted and informed about the benefits of the health promotion in order to encourage them to participate in the project.

The health message or logo helps in ensuring that the health promotional project attains its goals and objectives. The health message serves as a way of advertising the health project to the target group and helps them pas their main theme easily. For instance, in this health promotion project, we can adopt “Healthy lifestyle, a healthy nation” as the logos since the main emphasis of the project is promoting a healthy lifestyle among the target group. The health message serves as a way of reminding the people of the importance of the health promotion project to the community and the country at large.

Health promotion activity involves all the procedures and activities that will be performed by the different stakeholders to make the project successful. For this project, these activities include formulating and implementing effective policies as well as creating comprehensive awareness to the target group and the public at large. The policies that discourage smoking, alcohol consumption and junk foods will be formulated and implemented to provide an environment that encourages an individual to live a healthy lifestyle. The project also will also do active public education on a healthy lifestyle through several activities such as organize walks to encourage the target group to participate and maintain their physical activity levels at a healthy level.

The media would also be used to advertise the importance of living a healthy lifestyle. The target group comprises of people above 70 years of age, therefore, conventional media advertising through television and radio will work. Community mobilization where individuals within the target group are brought together and health practitioners educate them on why it is important to live a healthy lifestyle as a way of reducing the risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Health promotion evaluation is very important in any health promotion since it enables the assessment of the success of the promotion continuously and ensures that the set objectives and goals are met efficiently and effectively, Nitsch, Waldherr, Denk, Marant, and Forster, 2013). There are there types of evaluation namely formative evaluation, process evaluation, and summative evaluation.  Formative evaluation involves data collection throughout the project while process evaluation focuses the project implementation by determining the weakness and strengths of the project. The summative evaluation involves determining what percentage of project success at the end.  Health promotion evaluation is very important since it helps in identifying the effectiveness of the project in the community.

Conclusion

 Health promotion is among the crucial elements of public health and plays an important role in protecting and improving the health of the people and quality of life. The health promotion plan was on prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases among Australian indigenous male population. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the leading chronic diseases in Australia that has a high morbidity rate. There are several risk factors that enhance the morbidity rate caused by cardiovascular diseases to increase exponentially among Indigenous Australians. This health promotion help on the management and prevention of CVD by formulating and implementing the appropriate policies, monitoring health conditions and supporting individuals to make healthy choices. Living a healthy lifestyle helps in reducing the risk factors associated with CVD.

Reference

Ashen, D. (2010). Cost-effective prevention of coronary heart disease. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 6(10), 754-764. doi:10.1016/j.nurpra.2010.07.026

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2015). 3303.0-Cause of death, Australia, 2015: Ischemic heart disease.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2014). Coronary heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Indigenous Australians. Retrieved from https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/647d1df6-5b33-4d71-bc63-40a92b9afb24/16973.pdf.aspx?inline=true

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2016). Australian’s health 2016. Retrieved from https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/9844cefb-7745-4dd8-9ee2-f4d1c3d6a727/19787-AH16.pdf.aspx?inline=true

Fleming, M. L., & Parker, E. (2015). Introduction to public health (3^rd ed.).Chatswood, NSW: Elsevier Australia.

Golechha, M. (2016). Health promotion methods for smoking prevention and cessation: A comprehensive review of effectiveness and the way forward. International Journal of Preventive Medicine, 7,7. doi:10.4103/2008-7802.173797

Lemone, P., Burke, K., Bauldoff, G., Gubrud, P., Levett-Jones, T., Hales, M., Reid-Searl,K. (2017). Medical-surgical nursing, Critical thinking for person-centred care. (3rd. Australian ed.). Melbourne, Victoria:  Pearson Australia.

McMurray, A., & Clendon, J. (2014). Community health and wellness : Primary health care in practice (5^th ed.). Chatswood, NSW: Elsevier Australia.

Nitsch, M., Waldherr, K., Denk, E., Griebler, U., Marent, B., & Forster, R. (2013). Participation by different stakeholders in participatory evaluation of health promotion: A literature review. Evaluation and Program Planning, 40, 42-54. doi:10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2013.04.006

Owusu-Addo, E., Edusah, S. E., & Sarfo-Mensah, P. (2015). The utility of stakeholder involvement in the evaluation of community-based health promotion programmes. International Journal Of Health Promotion & Education, 53(6), 291-302.  Cardiovascular Disease Prevention In Indigenous Australian Males Example Paper