Advocacy, health promotion and the social determinants of health:
Choose a health issue that you have seen in your practicum community of practice: this may be an acute or chronic health issue that you will explore from a health promotion/disease prevention perspective. Remember that health promotion addresses inequities and health determinants (think population health promotion model) and prevention is to be examined within this context. Ensure that you choose something that will be ‘meaty’ enough for the purposes of the assignment.
It may be helpful to identify a couple of cases from your practicum where you have participated in the care of individuals or families either directly or indirectly living with the issue so you can draw on your experience for clinical examples that you can include in your paper. The assignment is to be written using the community you are currently completing your practicum – this will help you provide valuable insight and examples where needed. Please be attentive to including at least 8-10 scholarly references.
Use your clinical experience, community resources and the scholarly literature as a reference to reflect and to demonstrate the relationship health advocacy, health promotion, disease prevention and the social determinants of health. The paper will be graded as follows:
- Introduction (5 marks)
- Discuss the health issue in relation to three social determinants of health you have identified in your community of practice from an individual, community and population level. (20 marks)
- What is the impact of this health issue in your community? Give real examples and discuss why this is a problem. Explore the economic impact of this issue on the health care system or the economic impact in your community (10 marks)
- What evidence of advocacy can you find that demonstrates there are individuals, groups or organizations in your community that are working to address this issue? Give examples of two and discuss how they are working to improve the lives of people living with the health issue. Do you think their approach is effective? What makes this advocacy? (15 marks)
- Discuss primary health promotion and prevention of this health issue. What resources are available in your community and how you might engage in advocating and promoting primary health promotion and prevention interventions in your practice? (10 marks)
- Discuss secondary health promotion and prevention of this health issue. What resources are available in your community and how you might engage in advocating and promoting secondary health promotion and prevention interventions in your practice? (10 marks)
- Conclude with a discussion about the impact of this learning on your future practice. What gaps in programs or resources have you identified? What tools and resources you will take forward into future practice? Include at least one example as an appendix. How has your perspective of this health issue changed through the completion of this assignment? (10 marks)
