Building a Healthy Community

To build and sustain healthy communities, a crucial element is learning from community members what is problematic and determining solutions to improve public health. Involving the community in public health planning is a vital factor because they know first-hand what needs to be improved. White, Stallone’s, & Last, (2019) stated, “Community efforts in promoting healthy living for all people at all ages make the difference in health outcomes in the long term”.

Engaging community members to improve overall public health can make a huge difference in the long run. The African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) is an example of an organization who promotes evidence-based community healthy. AMREF tackles health-issues at the core based on with a mission to ensure access and delivery of good health (White, Stallones, & Last, 2013). AMREF is an example to learn from for other communities to imrpove their public health. The organizaion is so successful because they utilize strategic thinking, encourage social development and public health policies, and promote worldwide good-health.

Broad Strategic Thinking

AMREF utilizes broad strategic thinking to empower and achieve their mission of improving and sustaining public health. Broad strategic thinking in terms of public health include social development, healthy public policy and systems development (White, Stallones, & Last, 2013). AMREF embodies all elements of strategic thinking in their mission and actions.

Social Development

AMREF encourages healthy social development for all communities by encouraging a network of communities to work together with health professionals. The social-ecological model identifies how people relate to one-another based on the individual versus the whole society (White, Stallones, & Last, 2013). AMREF encourages a healthy social-ecological balance by fighting issues at the core individual to ultimately help the greater good of society.

 Evidence of healthy public policy.  In the AMREF case study, there is evidence of healthy public policy when the organization tackled a health problem in Kenya. This example falls into the People’s Health Movement Charter which was created in 2000. The charter emphasizes focus on the core-roots of poor health and poverty and how they are connected (White, Stallones, & Last, 2013). When AMREF fought blinding trachoma in Kenya, they focused on the core roots of the problem to find an effective solution. AMREF found out that there was very little water, many flies, and women were cooking on unsanitary floors. They implemented a system to fight the core-root of the problem which resulted in a decrease in trachoma (White, Stallones, & Last, 2013). AMREF showed evidence of the People’s Health Movement Charter by tackling public-health problem by noticing relationships between factors and fighting the problem by the core.

Evidence of systems development for health policy. In the case study, there is evidence for system development for healthy public policy. For example, communities in Africa have already used AMREF’s strategy to improve public health. White, Stallones, & Last, (2013) stated, “Supported by operational research, many of AMREF initatives become health systems models fro Africa, influencing policies and practices across the continent” (p.94). AMREF’s focus on community based evidence could be a stepping stone for future policies for other communities. Community based assessments and plans of action can help build sustainable healthy communities. Per a research study on the effectiveness of local health agencies (LHA) incoporating community health assessments and plans of actions, Rabarison, , Timsina, and Mays (2015) concluded, “our results signal that routine implementation of a community health assessment and improvement plan in LHAs leads to improved public health decision-making and actions” (p.2526). When LHA research specifically from communities the status of their public health, an effective approach can be taken to improve. AMREF is evidence that community based evidence is a positive approach to improve overall public health of society.

Learned Information

My community in New Jersey could learn from this case study. In our community, we have overall decent public health however, the community does not have enough internal encouragement or resources. Our current ongoing issue of lead in public school systems could follow the approach used by AMREF to find the core problem of the issue and have a protocol to tackle it. We need more engagement and action taken from community members to find the core problem of lead in water and determine what could be done to prevent it in the future.

Conclusion

Overall, community health can often be improved by finding out problems from society members. Encouraging society to participate in promoting a healthy lifestyle will help in the long-run. AMREF encourages, promotes, and acts to make good-health assessable to all members of the society. Other communities can learn from this by fighting poor health by getting to the root of the problem. Community members can team together and get involved to sustain a healthy community.

References

Rabarison, K. M., Timsina, L., & Mays, G. P. (2015). Community Health Assessment and Improved Public Health Decision-Making: A Propensity Score Matching Approach. American Journal Of Public Health, 105(12), 2526-2533. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302795

White, F., Stallones, L., & Last, J. M. (2013). Global Public Health: Ecological Foundations. New York: Oxford.