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Public Health Models
The Intervention Wheel healthcare model is a population-based model encompassing three main levels of practice: the community, systems, and individuals or families. In addition to the levels of practice, the model provides 17 interventions for public health that contribute to quality health improvement for the public. The model was designed in 1998 by the Minnesota Department of Health and has been widely used across the United States. This paper will analyze the Intervention Wheel model for public health and compare the model with the Health Belief Model for public health.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Intervention Wheel Model
The intervention wheel has various strengths that focus on the public health elements. One of the strengths of the intervention wheel model is that it captures the scope and breadth of the population-based public health nursing work. The model provides a firm foundation for public health nursing practices by integrating public health research and nursing practices. The 17 interventions in the public health model cover the needs of populations described by public health nursing. Some of the interventions such as screening, surveillance, disease investigation, case management, and health teaching provide prevention and control against adverse health conditions. Other interventions include advocacies, coalition building, and collaboration on general public health improvement. The intervention wheel model is highly adopted for covering the entire scope of public health practices aimed at improving the quality of public health (Galvin et al., 2019).
Another strength of the intervention wheel is that it focuses on all disease and adverse health prevention promotions. Most of the models focus on delivering care and improving health quality in secondary and tertiary levels of disease prevention. The primary prevention interventions protect the populations against health risks, keeping the health problems away from occurring. The primary interventions reduce susceptibility and exposure to the identified health risks and are implemented before the health issue happens. In the intervention wheel, interventions such as health education, health advocacy, outreach, and social marketing, among others, provide primary prevention to the public on health quality. Secondary prevention detects and treats health problems. Some of the secondary prevention interventions in the wheel include screening, outreach, referral, and follow-up interventions, among others. The tertiary prevention interventions help in managing the existing health conditions against chronicity.
The weakness associated with the intervention wheel model is that most of the interventions are focused on the public services and not the source of the services. There are no missing interventions in the wheel, but some interventions are solely described for the public. Health education is described for education programs and strategies for the community. The wheel does not provide the empowerment required for the healthcare team and policymakers to enhance the quality and access of public health. Education to the healthcare providers is one of the key measures to enhance the expertise needed for the other interventions identified in the wheel. A qualified team of healthcare providers improves the performance of disease screening, community education, collaborative public healthcare, and healthcare advocacy. The intervention wheel does not describe a quality working environment and resources as a prerequisite for the other interventions cited in the intervention wheel model for public healthcare.
Example of Intervention Wheel Model Implementation
COVID-19 is one of the most recent public health concerns which struck the whole world, especially in Europe and the United States. Various interventions were included in the prevention and control measures against the disease in countering the health problem. In countering the disease, the system came up with policies and enforced them in preventing the incidence of the disease in the United States. Some of the policies created and implemented at the state and national level included cessation of movement, wearing of masks, and sanitization requirements. Different states also modified the existing policies on healthcare occupational licensing and inclusion of retired healthcare providers in the system to enhance prevention and control of COVID-19. Outreach and surveillance on the infection situation across the states and counties were being made to determine the levels of response and the interventions to be included. More containment methods were put in place in the areas where the infection rates were high,
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