Community Awareness Health Programs: HIV/AIDS

Answer :

Community based interaction for health program

Introduction

AIDS is one of the most harmful diseases that can endanger man’s life. It is extremely important for man to be able to protect himself against diseases like AIDS which can transmit itself from one person to another as it can endanger communities together. Diseases like AIDS are instrumental in increasing the mortality rates in several nations and so a program that can enable awareness and empowerment is crucial. It is important to focus on delivering a strong level of awareness in order to prevent or curb HIV. At the same time it is required that people understand the ill effects of HIV on their health and life span. It is important to focus on ensuring that people understand the meaning of HIV and how it spreads. Only then they can protect themselves from contracting AIDS (Thorley JA, McKeating JA, Rappoport JZ., 2010). 

Part 1

Community based interaction in health programs based on Laverack's ladder

Laveracks ladder of participation indicates that community based interaction in health programs indicates that community empowerment is crucial. It is based on inter personal or contextual basis and as an outcome or as a process. It provides a link between individual control capacity and social aspects (Jones & Kotler,  2014). Leadership is a very important element in community based interaction in health programs. Only then empowerment is possible. This research is of great significance and importance from the practice utility point of view as it helps the government and health care units understand that leadership is crucial for participation. It is important for the government to understand that they should encourage communities to participate in order to make the health care programs more effective (Miyauchi K, Kim Y, Latinovic O, Morozov V, Melikyan GB¸ 2009). 

Prevention of HIV: 3 key strategies to implement a program

The 3 key strategies used to implement this program include policy making, community development program and leadership building. Policy making is the strength of this research as it is based on a government program. Policy making is the final step where in the policy makers come together and give in their policies. The interests of the policy makers and of the nation have a great impact on the policy being made (Jones & Kotler,  2014). Two examples of this are international bodies like WHO and UNO and the Federal government. The health care policies should be in favor of encouraging participation and leadership which are extremely important for empowerment of a community. This can actually help in a health program becoming successful. There are three separate activities, the first one being to develop a working relationship with migrant farm workers and owners as well as the municipality to set up mobile health clinics on site to directly address the health needs of the workers. The second one being the implementation of a health awareness program to help people know how they can prevent HIV and the third one is to focus on community participation and empowerment through leadership (Wilson, David P; Law, Matthew G; Grulich, Andrew E; Cooper, David A; Kaldor, John M, 2008). The evaluation plan is to contract out a specific monitoring and evaluation team to ensure that our project stays on target and is adequately addressing the needs of the community ( Cheney K, McKnight A, 2010). 

Part 2

Theories and models of health promotion practice 

The health belief model was developed in the 1950s by US Public Health Service to explain psychological framework of why fewer people participate in health programs developed to prevent and detect disease. It is used in professional nursing practices. This Model has been useful to explain patient compliance and non-compliance towards intervention and prevention programs. This theory is intrapersonal and is a model to develop health programs where prevention has failed. It explains people’s interest (or lack of interest) to participate in health-promoting activities (Markel H, 2001). 

This model describes the combination of personal risk analysis, solution to the analysis and uses of the solution. The health belief model can be shown in the below diagram:

This model forms the basis to understand the needs of the target segment and then use it in order to promote good health. The focus is on understanding how individuals or communities perceive health and then the rational action that they would take in order to prevent it or in order to improve their health (Pope M, Haase AT, 2003). 

Using core domains of capacity building as identified by Liberato et al

The core domains of capacity building as identified by Liberato et al can be used for promoting awareness about HIV and prevention of AIDS based on the use of various participation programs and empowerment programs for the members of the community. Communication is of great importance in health care as it helps bring awareness and information dissemination. In health care, information can help people resolve health issues and also ensure preventive measures being taken in order to avoid several illnesses. It is very important for each of the members of the community to be able to communicate and understand the impact of their actions on health (Ronald O. Valdiserri, 2000). 

The sender of the message is a hospital. The communicator or medium is a digital medium in the form of a brochure. The message to be communicated is the role of the hospital in helping patients deal with AIDS and helping spread awareness  on its prevention. In this way it is possible to build a stronger system that enables facilitation of community awareness. Technological advancements in the field of medicine have been very rapid. Hospitals and health care providers have started using the most advanced technologies. Using digital media can help build a stronger system that can have a better reach and a higher possibility for the program to succeed (Markel H, 2001). 

Part 3

Models and approaches of health promotion (health belief model and education approach) to motivate and educate 

The approach used for health promotion is the health belief model where an analysis of what individuals and communities think about how HIV is contracted is important. This can help create a better level of awareness and understanding among communities. The utilization of knowledge is an essential part of policy formation. It has a great impact on policy formation. This is so as it affects the levels of awareness. Two examples of knowledge utilization is AIDS medication and protection or prevention of AIDS. It is important that communities understand how they can deal with information on AIDS as well as how they can differentiate between the right source of information and a not credible source (Lasser, K. E., Himmelstein, D. U., & Woolhandler, S., 2006). The evaluation is based on understanding how the research is essential to obtain the required data for the purpose of building an effective basis for decision making and program designing in the sector of health care, especially with relevance to HIV/AIDS. This is an effective mode of understanding how communities can be helped to understand the impact of HIV on their health (Cheney K, McKnight A, 2010). 

Advantages and disadvantages of each model 

The health belief model helps design programs based on the existing understanding of the communities.  The education model on the other hand is not focused on the current understanding of the communities and ends up in giving relevant and irrelevant information which might or might not be comprehendible to the  communities. A lot of money is invested in case of research and development of these technologies. Data can be obtained through databases and blood sample banks in various parts of the world. This can help form a strong research evaluation and also help create better levels of understanding of the factors that are leading to HIV becoming epidemic and resulting in problems for the society. Then this can be used as a basis for deciding as to which model should be used (Lasser, K. E., Himmelstein, D. U., & Woolhandler, S. 2006). As the research is carried out in an appropriate manner using data from reliable resources, the research results are reliable and valid. It is quite evident that there are several significant steps that the government can take and decide as to which of the models would be appropriate (Ronald O. Valdiserri, 2000). In this way the research that is qualitative and based on multiple aspects of how humans with HIV are treated and supported from informal sources including family, which makes the research an essential and holistic research in the domain of human rights. It helps evaluate the impact of this support as well. It is a research based on evidence in the health care sector and so data does form an extremely important tool in the research. 

Link between capacity building and empowerment

In this way the research that is qualitative and based on multiple aspects of how humans with HIV are treated and supported from informal sources including family, which makes the research an essential and holistic research in the domain of human rights. It helps evaluate the impact of this support as well (Lasser, K. E., Himmelstein, D. U., & Woolhandler, S., 2006). Policy communication is the weakness of this research. The last contextual factor is the policy communication. This includes the drafting of the rules and regulations. This involves the public health sector and the open society of health. Only when this element is strengthened, it is possible to ensure that there be higher levels of leadership and empowerment among people. Research and analysis is a very important aspect as research helps the government form better policies and develop a complete understanding of the topic. Two examples of research and analysis include collection of statistics on HIV and collection of statistics on unprotected sex. Only when capacity, leadership and awareness is increased, empowerment of a community is possible.  It is crucial that the evaluation of the study be based on the research results and outcomes obtained. The comparison in the study is based on understanding the awareness levels and HIV infection rates before and after the awareness program. This would help evaluate the effectiveness of the awareness program in a community (Ronald O. Valdiserri, 2000). 

Self-Efficacy was added in the year 1988. Self-efficacy means the person’s perception of competence to efficiently perform a behavior. It was added to the other four components to better explain the individual behavior of a person towards a health condition. It was later recognized as a key component in the health belief model. It should be used effectively in order to develop a stronger community development. While the variables can be internal, there are also other demographics of psychological, social and structural variables. They can affect a person’s health related perception of susceptibility, benefits and barriers. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, education, etc. Psychological variables are personality, social class and peers pressure. Structural variables can be knowledge about the disease and contact with the disease (Hahn, Robert A.; Inhorn, Marcia Claire, 2009).

Conclusion

To conclude, there are a number of human rights organizations and NGO’s all around the world trying to help AIDS patients. The governments of developed nations are to bear this responsibility and this problem can be taken care of to a certain extent (Lasser, K. E., Himmelstein, D. U., & Woolhandler, S. , 2006). This research also focuses on public health management and global measures which can help control AIDS in the society along with the medical facilities and research that is required in order to help in the treatment of patients of AIDS. In this way a lot of community awareness programs can be used to help people obtain complete awareness and empowerment. We will monitor and evaluate these interventions throughout the duration of our project. Through the use of surveys, interviews, healthcare provider records, and blood samples, we will evaluate our project quarterly with a mid- and end- point reports that track the progress of our intervention (Markel H, 2001).