Family Health Essays

Topic 2 DQ 2

Family Health Promotion

The family health concept encompasses all activities where the family provides day-to-day health and living resources. The essential resources include shelter, food, access to healthcare, clothing, and a sense of self-worth. Family health ensures that family members are physical and emotionally stable through ensuring appropriate nutrition, healthcare education, and eradicating stigma or discrimination. Different health promotion strategies are availed at the family level to ensure that health promotion patterns are ascertained, and illness patterns are eradicated. Health promotion strategies are designed to suit different populations according to age. Examples of effective health promotion strategies for child and family health include promotion of breastfeeding, injury prevention, prevention of falls, promoting physical exercise, promoting child and family nutritional activities, health education, cessation of smoking and alcohol drinking, and promoting access to healthcare (Barnes et al., 2020). Family Health Essays

Nurses determine a suitable strategy for health promotion using the cultural and educational background of the community. Different healthcare promotion strategies are effective in different literacy levels. For instance, illiterate populations should be sensitized to the need for health promotion behaviors through oral communication and low-literacy level brochures designed for health promotion. On the other hand, literate populations are addressed effectively through detailed brochures and printed information that exhaust health promotion patterns. However, the effectiveness of the communication strategy selected relies on the cultural context. Nurses must possess a high degree of cross-cultural competency that enables them to work effectively in different cultural backgrounds where people may have a different perception of healthcare. Additionally, some cultural activities are unhealthy and expose families to healthcare problems

(Elmusharaf et al., 2017). Consequentially, there is a need for every nurse to determine the best way to eradicate such unhealthy cultural activities without creating a discriminatory feeling. A welcoming environment where patients and target audience in health promotion develops readiness to learn and engagement to implement strategies for health promotion patterns.

References

Barnes, M. D., Hanson, C. L., Novilla, L. B., Magnusson, B. M., Crandall, A. C., & Bradford, G. (2020). Family-Centered Health Promotion: Perspectives for Engaging Families and Achieving Better Health Outcomes. INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 57, 004695802092353. https://doi.org/10.1177/0046958020923537

Elmusharaf, K., Byrne, E., & O’Donovan, D. (2017). Social and traditional practices and their implications for family planning: a participatory ethnographic study in Renk, South Sudan. Reproductive Health, 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-016-0273-2 Family Health Essays