Health Promotion Approches Used in the National Prevention Summit 2008 - Essay Example

Health Promotion Approaches used in the National Prevention Summit 2008 Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 1.0Introduction 3 2.0The strategies 4 2.1Engaging all levels of society 5 2.2Strengthening the leadership and coordination 5 2.3Creating a sustainable financing 6 2.4Building infrastructure and resources 7 2.5Integrating evidence, policy and practice 8 2.6Improving of equity and fairness 8 3.0Conclusion 9 1.0 Introduction In order to improve the health status of Australian citizens now and in future, a platform geared towards prevention practice was prepared which culminated in the convening of the National Prevention Summit that was held on the 9th of April the year 2008 in Melbourne. However, it is worth noting that the resolutions made on this platform for prevention have been so far revised and refined to align them with the Australia 2020 Summit and the working programs being carried out by National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission together with the National Preventative Health Taskforce, following numerous discussions that have been carried out among these stakeholders. Those who participated in the National Prevention Summit did consent to a number of underlying key principles and various steps that were meant for policy development and the delivery of prevention program. The above issues thus included having a comprehensive and quite sustainable approach towards prevention practices, which does consider the current risk exposure factors and the social determinants of good health status; a great commitment towards universality, equity, and the shared responsibility that is inherent in the health promotion practices and prevention measures, besides reducing the gap that exists when it comes to consideration for disadvantaged people or groups; the dire need to have a higher number of well-informed citizens and engagement of the community in the course of setting out priority and reporting such outcomes; having a formal commitment to some form of partnership agreements with other sectors that are outside the realms of health, in and outside the government so that a sustainable health environment can be created and achieved; having an advocacy measure so as to come up with a society-wide culture that is geared towards promotion of health and prevention of ill health occurrences; putting in place accountability for actions taken to prevent ill health and outcomes realized at all levels of the government and this would entail annual reporting to parliament and the COAG; and , establishment of the need to increase funding for prevention significantly in a bid to promote total expenditure on health (Sydney, et, al., 2007, pp.1-12). This paper addresses the strategies presented and demonstrates how the strategic actions were agreed to be taken. 2.0 The strategies In coming up with the best prevention practice within the health care sector, the summit came up with various strategies that were geared towards tackling the present issues and addressing future needs. It is no doubt that there is compelling evidence to support the fact that the country would reap short-term and long-term social, economic and health benefits from establishing the prevention practices as a high priority area within the national sphere. Specifically, these strategies do benefit the health system itself due to the increment in the investment and emphasis that has been put into the health sector (Davis, 2008). The strategies of the Summit are still outlined in the AIHPS-VicHealth paper dubbed a Vision for Prevention in Australia which stipulates a series of strategies or steps that needed to be taken to make sure that the current and future health and general wellbeing of all the citizens of Australia, especially those that have the largest life expectancy and wellbeing gap who are the indigenous groups of Australia, are taken care of (Australian Institute of Health Policy Studies, 2008; National Prevention Summit, 2008). The action platform addressed in the summit of 2008 thus included six major interlocking strategies which included engaging all the levels of society; strengthening the leadership and coordination; creating sustainable financing; building infrastructure and resources; integrating evidence, policy and practice; and finally, improving on the level of equity and fairness in Australia. It is worth noting that each strategy does stand for a foundation stone that is aimed at having a robust prevention agenda in Australia. The strategies from the Summit are discussed in detail below: 2.1 Engaging all levels of society The broader society of Australia was to take part in the process of setting up priorities and making decisions on those actions which do prevent the citizens’ illnesses and thus promote their health and wellbeing (Talbot, 2010, pp.24-78). Indeed without having the community owning the process, there are possibilities of failure since the measures would be taken as cooked in boardrooms. The way forward in ensuring this strategy sails through was by establishing some systematic methods aimed at ensuring that there is information awareness among the citizens; develop a clear means of engaging the wider community and constituents such as business sector in the general prevention and health promotion activities that would encompass things such as setting up of regular health policies with full and open discussions with all stakeholders; promoting the aspect of open community debate on the social, physical, economic and cultural drivers that bring about ill health and formulating as well as implementing the strategies necessary in addressing them; and finally, encouraging and building a mutual culture and subsequently getting the people to understand the health promotion and prevention within the community in support of actions, regulations to see to it that there is a safer environment and that it is promoting health (Sydney, et, al., 2007, pp.1-12). 2.2 Strengthening the leadership and coordination This was the second strategy and it was outlined that having a vision, good leadership, and setting agreed outcomes, and coordinating various sectors, settings, and different levels of government are very critical elements in the realization of goals that are aimed at prevention measures and promotion of health practices. The necessary actions to go with this included the setting up of cross-jurisdictional and portfolio mechanisms that cut across the implementation of different priorities and actions which had been agreed under the National Preventative Health Strategy; promoting the integration of prevention by use of COAG Health Working Group. This was to take place through all levels and sectors of the Australian government; driving a form of accountability by use of COAG HWG through the identification of small performance indicators that had been identified to necessitate national reporting; bring about an approach to legislation that is supportive of a ‘health in all policies’; single out and encourage those considered as champions for prevention in all sectors of the country that could be used to advocate for these major changes; come up with a national capability like a national public health institute; and then providing some form of prevention leadership training and such a framework that would be done through development of all the workforce throughout the whole country (Talbot, 2010, pp.24-78; Sydney, et, al., 2007, pp.1-12). 2.3 Creating a sustainable financing This was dubbed as the third strategy and encompassed having new approaches meant to realize funding availability geared towards expanding the prevention measures in the whole country and thus making it sufficient, easily accessible and sustainable. This was to be carried out through various actions that included recommending methods and approaches by the National Preventative Health Taskforce meant to enhance identified prevention programs and approaches which have been known to be more efficient and equitable; delegate the establishment of a new financial framework for health promotion and prevention to COAG; review the current status of Australian and international experience and build upon it in relation to various strategies such as taxation-based among others; coming up with a funding model which is very transparent and identifying incentives that support the prevention by taking into consideration of new and current mechanisms of financing; do encourage the private sector to engage in the exercise of preventing and promoting health; and finally, make sure that the government funding of health and community based services do not have the disincentives when it comes to the promotion of health and its prevention activities (VicHealth, 2008). 2.4 Building infrastructure and resources This entails reorienting the current, and creating the future, infrastructure and resources that are meant for a sustainable and effective health promotion and prevention. The necessary actions to see this through were the development of a workforce that is stronger through the construction of already available initiatives, bring in new ones such as training schemes, and eventually developing some innovative approaches that do encompass health knowledge to the population and imparting skills through education programs; making improvements on capabilities in the collection, subsequent analysis and use of information regarding health, proper management of data-sets and knowledge systems in order to help in planning and taking actions in prevention and benchmark these with international models of best practice like the area-based public health observatories applied in the UK; make sure that there is continuous monitoring of all risk factors and those considered as health determinants by enlarging the current surveillance systems so as to give support to the use of information strategically in order to develop interventions which will be focused on influences on health upstream; and finally do increase the accountability by regular reporting in public in relation to any form of outcome (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2007; National Prevention Summit, 2008). 2.5 Integrating evidence, policy and practice It was outlined that there is necessity of integrating the research done, practice and policy in the health sector in order to help in ensuring effectiveness and evidence base of prevention. This could be done through the setting up of an authoritative national advisory body that is able to make an assessment of the evidence and give relevant advice on the carrying out of preventive practice that is the best, having links to all decisions on funding and development of a taskforce; build the needed investment in the applied research of intervention, evaluating and innovating development through the current funding mechanisms for research and coordination units for various programs, ensure equity and efficiency considerations which would be included in the evaluation of programs; make serious improvements in the coordination and collaboration of research activities cutting across all funding bodies in Australia together with setting up of priorities for prevention and health promotion that are embraced and shared by all the community; developing and implementing the incentives and the support mechanisms that are meant for the adoption of evidence based practice in the delivery of these programs; and then work on building brokerage concepts for knowledge so as to help facilitate major networks and information sharing needs and needed intelligence between all involved researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, and help bring on board all other stakeholders on social policy frameworks (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2007; National Prevention Summit, 2008). 2.6 Improving of equity and fairness It has been outlined that an equity lens is required in all the prevention practices so as to reduce the gap in health especially for those groups that are considered disadvantaged (Rudd, 2008). The necessary actions for this move incorporate developing strategies that are meant for prevention which do concentrate necessary action on the pillars of social, cultural, economic, and commercial aspects that have an influence on the health of the citizens and contain necessary limits for healthy choices; this would also be assisted by a campaign that actively engages the entire Australian community on the conditions that are in the society which have been singled out as major causes of observed health outcomes, such as the designing of urban dwellings and their relevant planning, access to essential education and basic modern housing, constant supply of food and employment that is sustainable. This will also call upon the stressing of attention towards a serious program that ensures early childhood development; call upon and do encourage the adoption of effective regulatory strategies by the government besides it initiating monitoring systems which do promote good corporate social responsibility. These CSR would thus include tax incentives for such measures and regulations so as to make sure that goods and services are able to promote the good health of their consumers instead of diminishing them; and also make sure that allocation of funds to financing of program and their designs do take into account the specific needs demanded by these communities that have been disadvantaged (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2007; National Prevention Summit, 2008). 3.0 Conclusion One major issue that was singled out in this Summit was the fact that the Australian healthcare system has been more capable in dealing with current issues in health but this is simply reactive as opposed to measures that are proactive (Zimmet & Jennings, 2008, pp.1-15). The health system has therefore concentrated on detection of health problems, diagnosing them and treating these health problems instead of looking for means of averting their occurrences. Various health challenges have been seen to affect the Australian health sector and if not currently, they are feared to crop up in future (Leeder, 2005, pp.1-8). These include the growing disparities that exist between the status of health and opportunities that are available to the different groups of population; the ageing fast of the population which will pose a significant effect for usage of health services and the necessary participation of the labour force; increment in the numbers of disability, injury and emergence of chronic illness; and finally, pandemics like influenza, natural disasters, communicable diseases and biological threats that are on the rise. This list simply adds to the current problems in the health sector (Talbot, 2010, pp.24-78). For the above issues to be addressed, it was thought necessary to convene a summit which would address them in a proactive manner. Thus there has risen an increasing momentum that is aimed at improving the health of the people, prevent poor health statuses, reduce levels of disability, and cut down on the health inequalities that are currently being experienced and feared that they will still define the future health conditions in the country. Prevention was therefore seen as accruing various benefits such as reduction of the burden of diseases experienced by the community as mentioned above; facilitates an improved and better use of finite resources of the health system; does generate many benefits to the economy due to the investments in the public health programs; and comes up with a workforce that is healthier which actually turns out to boost the performance of the economy (Keleher, et al., 2007, pp.22-56). List of References Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) (2007), Preventive Services Taskforce (2008), Retrieved on 1st October 2011, from http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/uspstfix.htm Australian Institute of Health Policy Studies (AIHPS) (2008), A Platform for Advancing the Health and Wellbeing of All Australians, National Prevention Summit 2008, Retrieved on 1st October 2011, from http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/~/media/ProgramsandProjects/OtherActivity/Attachments/npsPost-SummitPlatform.ashx Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2008), National public health expenditure report, 2005-2006, Health and welfare expenditure series. No 32. Canberra: AIHW. Retrieved on 1st October 2011: http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title/10528 Davis, Glyn (2008). “A stable, but flexible, system will ensure universities’ success,” The Age Kelleher Helen, Colin MacDougall, & Bernie Murphy (2007), Understanding health promotion, Oxford: Oxford University Press National Prevention Summit (2008), A vision for prevention in Australia, discussion paper, VicHealth Rudd, K. (2008), Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples, Parliament of Australia House Hansard, Retrieved on 1st October 2011, from www.parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au Stephen R Leeder (2005), The New Public Health, James Cook University, Townsville. Retrieved on 1st October 2011 http://www.menzieshealthpolicy.edu.au/media/doc/nphtnvl070305.pdf Sydney, Allen & Unwin, Lin, V. & Fawkes, S. (2007), “Health Promotion in Australia: a 20-year retrospective,” Promotion and Education, XIV (4), pp.1-12 Talbot (2010), Promoting Health: a Primary Health Care Approach, Elsevier Australia VicHealth (2008), Submission on Prevention to Australian Government (draft) Zimmet, P. & Jennings, G. (2008), “Curbing the obesity epidemic,” Opinion article, The Age, pp.1-15 Read More