Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Plan Essay

Flushing and Whitestone Disease Prevention Plan

New York is a city that comprises of several different neighborhoods. What makes this city to be distinct are how diverse these areas are, their vast historical account and also the people. However, protracted and gradually increasing income inequality, coupled with a past of racial seclusion of residents, has given rise to startling health discriminations between neighborhoods. There is a tendency of deteriorating health results gathering in areas that individuals of color consider to be their homes and where several people reside in poverty. The purpose of this paper is to lay emphasis on the disease prevention plan for the neighborhoods of Flushing and Whitestone.

Community Setting and Role

Within this expanse, the most prevalent cause of premature death is cancer with a likelihood of 24 percent followed by heart disease, which has a likelihood of 21 percent. Other causes constitute 42 percent, and this consists of aspects such as accidental incidents, which comprise of 5 percent, demises associated to HIV, which comprise of 3 percent, murder and suicide, which are 3 percent and 2 percent respectively. It is imperative to note that these illnesses that result in premature death have an effect on both men and women, for the most part those between 45 and 64 years. Imperatively, for individuals at the age pf 65 years and beyond, the topmost reasons for their demise are cancer and heart disease (New York City Department, 2002). With respect to men, prostate, lung, and colorectal cancers are the main causes of death whereas amongst women, the main causes of death comprise of lung, breast, and colorectal cancers. Lastly, other causes of premature death amongst individuals of 65 years and beyond includes wounds emanating from falling (Ashpole et al., 2013).

In this case, the preceptor is a high ranking clinical staff within the Flushing Hospital Medical Centre. Taking into consideration the demographical features of its key service region, Flushing Hospital has ascertained fundamental concerns within the locality it renders services to and is dedicated to diminishing inequalities in healthcare accessibility in order to improve the health status of all populaces. In this regard, the rates of demise together with data delineating a characteristic from each of the ten most significant regions determined by New York City’s Take Care New York (TCNY) 2016 are outlined for Flushing Hospital’s regions and comparisons made against other neighborhoods like Queens and NYC.

Target Population

The populace of the region spans over 255,000, which comprises of 52% of individuals from the Asian descent, 28% being white, 17% being of the Hispanic descent, 2% being African American, and 2% being other. Approximately, 57 percent of the people within the region are born from a foreign land and 47 percent of them are not properly proficient in English. In addition, in accordance to the data profile, roughly 70 percent of the inhabitants within the region termed their individual health as being either excellent, very good, or good based on ranking with a life expectancy of 83.6 years (NYC Health, 2015).

Other concerns precluding members of the target community from maximizing the healthcare system include cultural aspects, especially those associated to religious beliefs. In the same manner, an obstacle to proper healthcare is the absence of health literateness and acquaintance of the prevailing system of healthcare. There is a significant need for religious leaders and the community in its entirety to work in tandem to enhance the maintenance of healthcare, and augment knowledge associated to the prevalent causes of death or illnesses within the community. For instance, one of the approaches of accomplishing this is taking into account the necessity for sustaining a healthy heart and the appraisal and treatment of the different kinds of cancer by detecting it early. In the same manner, two of the most causative factors of heart diseases amongst the community residents include high levels of cholesterol together with high blood pressure, and it is imperative to conduct the screening amongst residents and also establishing maintenance programs (Ashpole et al., 2013).

The level of education of the residents in the target community is assorted. Majority of the members of the community have either attained a high school diploma or attained some kind of college education, statistics being 28 percent and 42 percent respectively. In addition, 23 percent of the inhabitants with 25 years or higher have attained a college degree. The reports also indicate that approximately a quarter of the area residents lacked healthcare insurance and cover. In general, 20 percent of adults in the populace lack a primary care provider which approximately satisfied the TCNY target, demonstrating that the inhabitants of the region have better accessibility to healthcare, which gives rise to lower occurrences of visitation to the emergency department (Ashpole et al., 2013).

Priority Issue

The issue of significance and priority is linked to the health status of minority groups within the target population. Adults and children from the minority group with a low-income status experience an uneven burden of chronic illness, utilize hospital emergency room services more frequently for healthcare, have inferior health status, and greater premature demise. In addition, according to FHMC (2012), there is a greater likelihood of lower-income minority populations lacking accessibility to healthcare and eventually developing mental health problems such as drug abuse linked to high psychosomatic stressors like loss of job opportunities and financial stress.

Within the area of Queens, there is a perceptible inequity in the ratios of premature births in the sense that Black non-Hispanics experience a greater rate of premature births in comparison to White non-Hispanics. This inequity is perceptible when making a comparison of premature birth rates for Hispanic and White non-Hispanic mothers between NYS and Queens, with the latter being greater (FHMC, 2012). Furthermore, the neighborhoods mirror high rates of risk factors for low birth weight and preterm births, together with births to Medicaid recipients, African-American and Latino women, and low-income women.

There is a greater likelihood of low birth weight and premature births giving rise to medical issues, both as newborns, issues such as brain bleeding, patent ductus arteriosus, and heart problems further on in life. The Neighborhoods have shown comparatively inferior percentages of preterm births and low birth weight occurrences. The low birth weight rate is 6.51 percent in comparison to the Healthy People 2020 main target of 7.8 percent. Roughly 11.1 percent of the births that took place in the area zip codes were premature, which satisfies the Healthy People 2020 objective of diminishing the percentage of premature birth occurrences to 100 percent or lower (FHMC, 2012).

With respect to the undesirable and worrying number of hospitalizations taking place owing to falls, lack of coverage, minimal rates of immunizations, and lack of HIV screening are all aspects that necessitate enhancement. Statistics indicate that roughly 15% of inhabitants live below the established federal poverty level. This is associated to the fact that 9 percent of the residents are unemployed and over 50 percent spend more than a third of their monthly gross income on rent. However, the occurrence of non-attendance amongst children in elementary is low, with solely 8 percent of the student missing 20 school days or more. Roughly a quarter of the adults lack health cover, 9 percent lived devoid of required medical care, and 9 percent has late prenatal care or failed to experience such care at all (NYC Health, 2015).

Plan of Care

The prevention measures of the target population are for the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. On one hand, primary prevention measures comprise of health education provided by nurses together with immunizations. Secondly, secondary prevention measure encompasses early diagnosis, proper illness screening, obtaining similar cases, and immediate treatment. Finally, tertiary prevention measures largely lay emphasis on the falls experienced by the elderly in the sense that they are offered substitute options for housing and are provided with physical therapy and Direct Observed Therapy (Rector, 2018).

There is a great need for a huge effort to be engaged in the plan of care. In…