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Public Health Models
Public health is focused on ensuring a healthy community through health education, awareness, and healthcare delivery. Public healthcare delivery is based on various models that guide the healthcare practices of the public healthcare providers. A public health model is a concept carrying various disciplines, including health, welfare, and education, in improving the health and wellbeing of the community. Public health models are important in the healthcare system because they aim to prevent health problems by targeting the development and implementation of policies and interventions on health risk factors to minimize the long-term effect of the particular problem. According to AIFS (2019), public health provides a theoretical framework spanning primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions. The models help in guiding the public healthcare providers to make decisions on healthcare delivery to the public.
One of the models is the community organization model, which involves a participatory decision-making process to empower communities in improving health. The model emphasizes the importance of active participation of the community in identifying the major health issues and the most effective strategies that can help address the problems. The model calls for understanding the root causes of the health issues, collaborative decision making and also in problem-solving, having focus on specific issues, engaging participation from different groups and stakeholders within the community, providing and maintaining a lasting change, and providing feedback to the community (Rural Health Organization, 2020).
The CDC’s four-step model by Georges Benjamin and Leesa Lin provides the key steps that a public healthcare provider can use to deal with community health issues. According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2017), the model calls for first defining the health problem through reliable data, identifying the risk and protective factors using scientific research designs, developing and testing the identified prevention strategies using evaluation tools, and assuring widespread adoption through additional training, technical assistance, and evaluation. These theories provide a guide on how to respond to public health issues.
References
AIFS. (2019, December 21). Defining the public health model for child welfare services. Child Family Community Australia. https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/defining-public-health-model-child-welfare-services-context
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2017, February). Applying Public Health Models and Approaches to Countering Violent Extremism. In Countering Violent Extremism Through Public Health Practice: Proceedings of a Workshop. National Academies Press (US). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537576/
Rural Health Organization. (2020). Community Organization Model – Rural Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Toolkit. Rural Health Infor. https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/toolkits/health-promotion/2/program-models/community-organization
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